TODAY'S PAPER(S)

According to Slate's "Today's Papers" feature -- which is simply the best thing about that publication, save for maybe Kinsley's occasional contributions -- Only one of the five major dailies (the USA Today, interstingly enough) discusses the interesting interpretation of the Kay Report made by Bush in the State of the Union Address.

Bush was also, shall we say, less than completely forthright when he defended his administration's earlier statements about Saddam's supposed chemical and biological weapons. "Had we failed to act," the president said, "the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day." Bush continued, "The Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations."

Nearly all the papers let that humdinger slide. USA Today is the exception. In the kind fact-checking piece that should be ubiquitous, the paper has a wide-ranging "reality check on what Bush said on key issues." The article, which runs inside, notes that despite Bush's suggestions, the Kay report "turned up no weapons and no evidence of any advanced weapons program."

This is surprising, because after the 2003 uranium debacle (not much of the other WMD stuff was all that true either), you'd think the media would be armed and ready to at least play "gotcha!" should Bush bring up the WMD issue this year. While a worthwhile venture indeed, this sort of thing should have lent itself well to the hyper-simplistic, quick-story nature of our media. And only the USA Today, out of the five major papers, points this out? Oy.