The media has allowed, without appropriate challenge, the claim that President Bush distorted intelligence leading up to the Iraq War. This claim was properly addressed by Tim Russert on this Sunday's Meet the Press when he asked Senator Ted Kennedy (one of John Kerry's biggest supporters), "So the president and the Congress was acting on the same information, and now you're saying the president lied when, in fact, your colleague, Senator Kerry, voted for war, voted for the authorization and said on the floor of the Senate, "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction." To which Kennedy responded, "The fact is this administration distorted and misrepresented--weapons of mass destruction, Tim--does Syria have weapons of mass destruction? Yes. Does Iran have it? Yes. Did Libya have it? Yes. Does Egypt have it? Yes. Does North Korea have it, this nuclear weapons--yes. So we understand that they had some program. They misrepresent the immediacy. They made the point--when they talk about mushroom cloud, they talk about grave, they talk about the immediate threat, they were talking about an immediate threat." I'm not really sure what Kennedy was talking about, but thank you Mr. Russert.

CNN has pretty much stopped using the word terrorist in it's articles, opting instead for "militant" and only occasionally using the 'T' word if they are quoting someone who happens to use it. AP has followed suit. The New York Times has long been accused of copping a liberal, almost communist bias in their reporting. Freedom of the press is one of the fundamental principles of American society, but the purpose of a free press is to help get the truth out, not enable publishing company’s to promote their own agendas or sway Americans with misinformation.

James Golden is a political columnist for MBGZ.com