He can't do that to our pledges

Only we can stir random paranoia among our audience do that to our pledges!

The News has a point here, after a fashion. Next time it could be a BOMB, especially if it's a bomb about the size and weight of a few king-size sheets being carried by -- what's that, New York's Hometown Newspaper? -- "a skateboard-toting youth and four pals." You can't be too careful about these things.

Unless you're, you know, some rube from Chicago who doesn't understand what it's like to live in the most important city in the world. How did it sound at the Daily News back on, say, March 26?

New Yorkers got a chilling wake up call Tuesday about just how badly terrorists want to strike the city.

And how badly is that?

The warning came straight from the top: President Obama.

During a news conference in the Europe, Obama said he’s far more worried about the possibility of a nuclear weapon exploding in New York City than he is about the threat posed by Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

Let's go to that all-important "context," shall we?

... Obama was responding to a question about whether Russia’s seizure of Crimea proved that Republican Mitt Romney “had a point” in the 2012 presidential race when he called Russia America’s top geopolitical foe.

Which is a much more substantive response than "no," and much politer than "want to start a pool on how long it takes before brown people in the Middle East are your favorite threat again AAAAAAGH!?!?!?!?!?!" Let alone "Quick, name the rising Asian power that's actually buying up and operating those carriers that the Soviets never quite completed." But the March 26 front page has a different point, whch has little if anything to do with what the "terrorists" might or might not want. It's about who gets to tell the pledges to panic and when, and the First Amendment says that decision belongs to America's Newspapers. Or something.

If I could stamp out one loony media myth tonight, it'd be the idea that the presence of a right-wing media outlet in a dyad makes the other outlet "liberal." New York has a deranged, paranoid, exceptionalist right-wing tabloid, but that doesn't mean the Daily News is its left-wing counterpart. The News is a deranged, paranoid, exceptionalist tabloid that sometimes endorses Democrats. The difference is worth attending.