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Here’s a blog about Ohio’s 15th congressional district, where Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy is challenging Republican incumbent Deborah Pryce.

Via Crooks and Liars: Jesus Camp.

Worshipping to a picture of President Bush.

…

Pastor Becky Fisher: This means war! …

I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places.

Kid: You know a lot of people die for God and stuff and they’re not even afraid.

Girl: We’re kinda being trained to be warriors, only in a much funner way.

What a great idea. Let’s make America more like Pakistan and the Middle East, because things are going so well over there.

Six months from “Wanted Dead or Alive” to “I truly am not that concerned about him.” Earlier this year the CIA made plans to shut down their bin Laden unit.

And yet we’re supposed to believe the Republicans are the best team to fight the terrorists?

A few snippets from the new PBS program AIR: America’s Investigative Reports illustrate the difference between real reporting and the journalistic stenography that tries to pass as reporting:

Bryan Lonegan, Immigration Attorney:

He [NPR investigative reporter Daniel Zwerdling] didn’t believe anything I said until I proved it to him. If I said something happened, then I’d better be able to prove that, either with documents or a witness. And then, wouldn’t you know, he’d go back and check with that witness to make sure.

…

I deal with a lot of journalists. Invariably, they call me up; they say “I’m doing a story on XYZ, what do you think?” I give them three or four sentences of, you know, a sound bite or a nice pithy quote to put in a story, and then they call up the government and they get a counterpoint. And so you have point, counterpoint: Bryan Lonegan says this, the government says that. There’s your story.

Daniel Zwerdling, Reporter:

That doesn’t do anybody a service, because we’re all bombarded with different points of view that all have equal weight. Well, every point of view does not have equal weight. Lies should not get the same amount of weight as the truth.

Opinions are not facts. Facts are not opinions. Facts are susceptible to test and verification. But that’s a lot of work, and in the 24-hour news cycle, too many so-called reporters have decided it’s easier to treat facts and opinion as interchangeable.

No wonder the Bush administration ridicules the reality-based community.