Editorial courage hard to find

From Jim Boyd, deputy editorial page editor at the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, writing in the Neiman Reports:

The Bush administration arguably combines the worst elements of the Nixon, Johnson and Hoover administrations in one. And yet most of the mainstream press has handled it with kid gloves, most powerfully on Iraq. For me, the entire problem was captured in Vice President Dick Cheney's appearance on "Meet the Press" in September 2003. Cheney fed Tim Russert one lie and half-truth after another. The next day, editorial writers at every newspaper in the country had enough material (easily available) to do an extended truth-telling editorial. In my newspaper, the Star Tribune, a devastating critique filled the entire editorial column. No other paper did anything similar, though Cheney came in for sharp criticism on some of the better blogs.