If you’re not reading The Daily Howler, give it a shot. Bob Somerby is the only guy I’ve seen who consistently nails the reasons why reading a newspaper is a gut churning experience these days. In the past week:

Monday: Slams Tim Russert and Joe Klein for softballing Republicans, hardballing Democrats, and generally getting the facts so mixed up that they can’t even phrase the questions correctly.

Tuesday: Questions why the Bush claim of Social Security bankruptcy isn’t being refuted as the calumny it is. (EJ Dionne sez, because mainstream media can’t print factual information without being called liberal, so they just print the Republican version.)

Wednesday: Quote of the day: Scribes like Russert flee lucidity as their ancestors might have fled Lucifer himself.

Thursday: The same nonpartisan budget analysis can be used to quote a $2T, $4T, or $15 trillion dollar costs for the Bush plan, depending on the chosen time scale. So why is the “liberal media” quoting the Bush-friendly smaller costs?

Friday: More on the Bush-friendly cost numbers, plus a much-deserved evisceration of a self-proclaimed and self-loathing liberal Post columnist.

Monday: More from the columnist, as he proceeds to mostly agree with Ann Coulter, only with more polite language. QotD goes, as it so often does, to Ann: “Conservatives believe in God. All of our beliefs proceed from that…. That is why we love the United States of America, a country—I mean, I would be a peasant selling moccasins on the street or being beaten when my shoes make noise if I had been born in another country. What protects me is the United States of America, based on the Christian premise that all men are created equal…. By contrast, liberals believe they are God.