In his recent column, Paul Krugman writes:

The nature of the right-wing attack on The New York Times — an attack not on the newspaper's judgment, but on its motives — seems to have startled many people in the news media. After an editorial in The Wall Street Journal declared that The Times has what amount to treasonous intentions — that it "has as a major goal not winning the war on terror but obstructing it" — The Journal's own political editor pronounced himself "shocked," saying that "I don't know anybody on the news staff of The Wall Street Journal that believes that."

Further proof that the editorial page of the WSJ is an extreme right-wing outlet for GOP talking points that's apparently detached from the rest of the fine, sober journalists on staff. Amazing that the paper's political editor was forced to come out against his own editorial page, "shocked" at what he, like us, read.

Can credibility sink any lower for this already laughable editorial page?

As Krugman states, it's all part of a larger effort "to create a political environment in which nobody dares to criticize the administration or reveal inconvenient facts about its actions. And that attempt has relied, from the beginning, on ascribing treasonous motives to those who refuse to toe the line."

They use bully tactics and intimidation to cow any voice into submission that may be critical of their actions, to an extent that as John Dean has confirmed, would make Nixon blush. Plainly spoken, this is Fascism 101.

Krugman still has faith:

I think that most Americans still believe in the principle that the president isn't a king, that he isn't entitled to operate without checks and balances. And President Bush is especially unworthy of our trust, because on every front — from his refusal to protect chemical plants to his officials' exposure of Valerie Plame, from his toleration of war profiteering to his decision to place the C.I.A. in the hands of an incompetent crony — he has consistently played politics with national security.
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Mr. Bush's ability to wrap his power grab in the flag has diminished now that most Americans no longer consider him either competent or honest. But the administration and its supporters still believe that they can win political battles by impugning the patriotism of those who won't go along.

For the sake of our country, let's hope that they're wrong.

Yes, let's hope (and pray).