All the news that fits their spin.(Beat the press: the hand that rules the press ... rules the country--Judge Learned Hand)

Fake National Guard documents. Missing explosives. The draft. During the 2004 campaign, no story that made the President look bad was too petty, too contrived, or too false to command the attention of the establishment media.

Yet there was a key, last-minute development that reflected none too kindly on John Kerry. And it aroused almost no press attention whatsoever.

In the video he released just before the election, Osama bin Laden was rather clear about which candidate he wanted to lead the free world. It sure wasn't George W. Bush, whom he savaged personally and at great length. According to some experts, OBL even threatened red states with attacks should they back the President.

But the establishment media that swooned over the warnings of Michael Moore, and celebrated Bruce Springsteen's endorsement of Kerry, did its utmost to ignore these warnings and deny this endorsement by the world's premier terrorist. It was almost as though ABC's Mark Halperin--author of the infamous we-don't-need-to-be-objective-because-Bush-is-a-bigger-liar-than-Kerry memo--issued another advisory, this one directed to all the Fourth Estate: If anyone asks, Osama has no preference in this race. He's an "undecided."

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was one of many journalists who seemed to get that memo. "There is ... a new Osama bin Laden videotape," Olbermann told viewers. "And in it, he does not apparently take sides in the Presidential election."

Sure. Bin Laden, who harbors strong feelings about the 1187 Battle of Hattin, has no opinion as to who will spend the next four years waging war against him. That's why he risked life and limb to put his video out four days before the election.

That's why he spoke directly to the American public and not, as is his usual approach, to other Islamist fanatics. That's why bin Laden's rant picked up every DNC talking point that could possibly make its way to the caves of Pakistan--the Patriot Act squashes civil liberties, Bush stole the Florida election, Republicans are greedy, Iraq was invaded for oil, Bush is a liar, U.N. inspections were working so the war was unjustified, Halliburton is profiteering, even the Fahrenheit 9/11 claim that in continuing to read My Pet ...