Now that I'm fully caffeinated, let's read the papers. As usual, we've got to do the ol' "through a glass darkly" routine, because most of the interesting stories just aren't in the papers. For some reason.

Anyhow, to get a handle on the varieties of journalistic experience this morning, we need some departments to fit the buzzing, blooming confusion into. We can always change them later:

1. Ask-no-questions Unstories: Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living." These are the stories where reporter stenographer couldn't be bothered to ask the right people the right questions.

2. See-no-evil Unstories: Stories that aren't stories because the reporter stenographer somehow couldn't see what's right in front of them.

3. Business-as-usual Unstories: Stories that are stories, but will never enter into the narrative because

So, move along, people, move along! There are only unstories here!

From WaPo's Ask-no-questions desk, we have this: The FBI is looking into 8 different bribery schemes William Jefferson may have been involved in. The question not asked: Why hasn't steely determined Nancy Pelosi heaved this guy over the side? Does she want to make the Dems look just like the Republicans? Is there some strategery I'm missing? No quotes from Pelosi in the article!

And from the See-no-evil desk, WaPo offers an Unstory about private, unregulated military training for civilians. "At Valhalla Training Center ... students learn the basics of urban shootouts in a mock downtown." Hmmm... My downtown? Surely not.

"This is not a shooting school. It's a school for tactics," meaning the total set of skills useful in actual gunfighting, said Rob Pincus, director of shooting operations at Valhalla.

Love the Wagnerian lietmotif!

But many schools also provide civilians with training that would seem to have few, if any, applications in everyday life.

Thunder Ranch, for instance, offers a class in which two-person teams learn to move and shoot in confined spaces and provide covering fire for each other.

Oh? Depends on your picture of what real life is going to be like in the future, I suppose.

But not all do: West Virginia's Storm Mountain Training Center offers a "Sniper I" course that, along with shooting, includes the construction of "ghillie suits" like those worn by military snipers to camouflage their positions. "Sniper III" includes training in "sniper mission planning" and the chance to fire live shots as part of simulated tactical missions, according to the school's Web site.

Here's a course listing from Storm Mountain's catalog:

Sniper II
This course covers advanced tactical applications of cover and concealment, camouflage, individual movement and stalking. Rural and urban hide construction, enhanced marksmanship techniques, range estimation and unknown distance range firing from 200 yds to 1000 yds.

Now, I'm sure any stalkers out there will welcome the opportunity to sharpen their skills. I'm not so sure about the people they stalk, though.

WaPo also presents two extremely fine Business-as-usual Unstories. First, the Republican Clang Birds tell us to be afraid. Be very, very afraid. (Clang Bird). Just take a look at the logic in this paragraph. "Justice" [cough] is arguing for concealing all the evidence of Bush's illegal warrantless surveillance program:

Justice Department attorneys said in their legal brief that the legality of the president's actions could be properly judged only by understanding "the specific threat facing the nation." They noted: "That understanding is not possible without revealing to the very adversaries we are trying to defeat what we know about them and how we are proceeding to stop them."

So, anything the Republicans are afraid of the courts can't review? That would be a very long list, wouldn't it? Starting with anything that threatens them with subpoena power...

Finally in Business as usual WaPo's venerable Walter Pincus writes that hallelujah, Congress is going to exercise oversight over the NSA. Here's the money quote, and its the kind of money that's so worthless you have to cart the bills around in a wheelbarrow:

In other action, the committee is requiring that future CIA directors be appointed "from civilian life," and approved language that Hayden, as long as he is on active military duty as CIA director, is "not subject to the supervision or control of the Secretary of Defense."

If this was so serious, why allow Hayden to take office in the first place? And does anyone really believe that Bush will listen to anything that Congress says about the chain of command? Watch for the signing statement on this one.

From the pages of Pravda on the Potomac, we turn our attention to Izvestia on the Hudson, which does not disappoint. In the Business as Usual category, Kudos to Bryan Calame for printing the following letter. [And where's Our Lady of the Multi-Year Contract, WaPo's L'il Debbie Howell, this week? Still under Jim Brady's desk?]

You describe a publicist-initiated profile of Loren Kreiss, the "scion of his family's California-based furniture business." You note that Trish Hall, who oversees the Real Estate section, defended the profile, saying that the Habitats feature "is one of the few places in The Times where we profile ordinary people."

Oh, for heaven's sake. Someone please tell Ms. Hall that "ordinary people" don't have publicists.
JOSH THOMAS
Kentland, Ind., May 7, 2006

if you remember that in the Times newsroom they think of multi-millionaires as "ordinary people," that tells you all you need to know about the narratives the Times going to push. The days of the working reporter, a la The Front Page--or Seymour Hersh, fer gawdsake--are long gone. And more to the front of the paper, Adam Nagourney writes a splendid Ask-no-questions story on Al Gore. The question not asked: "Will you accept a draft?" Seeing no evil, Fashionista Marc Jacobs explains what the well-dressed sniper should wear:

Soldier of Fashion
Whether you are a hawk or a dove or just a peacock, the trappings of war remain resiliently stylish and often go way beyond standard-issue camouflage. To anyone not fluent in the proud tongue of war arcana, the references embedded in our wardrobes are all but invisible, but that's where Bob Melet comes in.

Melet's mission is to bring home the artifacts that will inspire the A-list designers who frequent Melet Mercantile, his 2,800-square-foot appointment-only showroom in SoHo. "military is always relevant," [says Melet].

Indeed. And especially now! World class See-no-evil from Kate Zernicke on Kerry's swiftboating:

The veterans group, led by Mr. O'Neill, a former Swift boat commander who was recruited by the Nixon administration to debate Mr. Kerry on "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1971, began its campaign in early 2004 by criticizing Mr. Kerry's protests against the Vietnam War. But backed by Republican donors and consultants, they soon shifted to attack his greatest strength — his record as a military hero in a campaign against a president who never went to war.

Naval records and accounts from other sailors contradicted almost every claim they made, and some members of the group who had earlier praised Mr. Kerry's heroism contradicted themselves.

Note that all this evidence was available during the election. Now, the money quote:

Still, the charges stuck.

"Still"... Isn't that rich? Somehow, just somehow, "the charges stuck." Could it be because our "balanced" press treated obvious lies as potential truths? Remind me again why we ,strike>have had a First Amendment, please.

From the fetid Hudson, we turn our attention to the clean shores and clear sunlight of the Los Angeles River basin. Except I'm just not ready for Lindsay Lohan in A Prairie Home Companion. Not even if Robert Altman directs. Let me take a minute to regroup, here...

See no evil: Pony Blow is already beginning another Republican walkback on the Abu Gonzales resignation "threat"--as if anyone with an ounce of sense would have believed a lacky and a fluffer like Abu G. would threaten Dear Leader with anything:

"It was framed more theoretically: If this happens, this could happen," White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said Saturday, characterizing it as "an indirect threat."

"To the best of my knowledge, nobody ever said, 'I'm going to quit,' " Snow said.

Wow, how nuanced. Here's the current administration line:

Gonzales, McNulty and Mueller strongly believed the documents were obtained legally, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case [but who was obviously authorized to do so to float this revised standard version, based on it's self-serving nature and the well-known hatred Bush has for leaks and leakers. Yawn.]

"They feel they have an ethical and professional responsibility to enforce the laws of our country, and because of that they wouldn't be able or willing to turn over the documents," the official said. "It's very important to recognize that we never got to the juncture when anybody would have to resign."

Please. It hurts when I laugh. 750 signing statements from Bush about the laws we won't obey, and they expect us to swallow this nonsense? (And what I can't figure out, and the story doesn't address, is How is sealing the Jefferson records for 45 days going to help these crooks stay in office?) In the Department of Business as Usual, we have the ex-gay movement, just like the creationists, demanding our children grow up ignorant. Here's a representative quotation from one of their extremely heterosexual authority figures, "psychologist" Joseph Nicolosi:

"There is no such thing as a homosexual. We are all heterosexual. Our body was designed for the opposite sex."

Nicolosi went on to tell them that fathers could help their sons stay straight by bonding through rough-and-tumble games, such as tossing them in the air.

"Even if [the dad] drops the kid and he cracks his head, at least he'll be heterosexual," Nicolosi said, chuckling. "A small price to pay."

Lovely. And I suppose when the kids grow up gay, we can always have snipers take them out. And in the department of See no evil we have this stunning vignette, as Republican Denny Hastert struggles bravely to maintain his "institutional prerogatives" against an FBI search. (I'm all for parliamentary immunity as a check on executive power, but isn't Hastert coming to this party a little late?)

But Hastert's drama for the day did not end with his rare appearance, almost hand-in-hand, with Pelosi as they announced their joint statement.

Did Nancy know where that hand had been? What on earth is she thinking? Apparently nobody thought to ask...

Finally, the LA Times brings us a real story--which oddly, or not, appears in neither WaPo or the Pulitzer-light World's Greatest Newspaper (not!). Here's Jack Murtha on Haditha:

The fallout from the killing of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians by Marines could undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq more than the Abu Ghraib prison scandal did, a lawmaker who is a prominent war critic said Sunday.

The shootings last November at Haditha, a city in the Anbar province of western Iraq that has been plagued by insurgents, were covered up, said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

"Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long?" Murtha said on "This Week" on ABC. "We don't know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."

"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it."

Silly Jack Murtha! This is the malAdministration! Under Republican Rule, nobody is ever held responsible for anything, because that would imply that Inerrant Boy could be wrong!

Well, that's the Sunday papers for this week. There are so many egregious unstories that it's hard to pick the best one. And maybe I missed some. Readers, can you help?