Condoleezza Rice admitted, "We are obviously not very well organized for the side of public diplomacy." The 9/11 Commission warned, "If the United States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly do the job for us." Former State Departmen

John Kerry called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group "a front for the Bush campaign." The New York Times' in-depth report on the group finds "a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile

"Although we're not yet through the national conventions, 2004 is emerging as a snakebitten election for America's media 'Bigfeet' - our news organizations and TV's non-stop talking heads," writes Joel Connelly. "They've been wrong so much of the time already." During the Democratic primaries, the punditocracy erroneously anointed Howard Dean the frontrunner; more recently, they've largely ignored the worsening mess in Iraq while declaring that Iraq is putting Kerry on the defensive. Why are the big media doing such a poor job?