NewsBusters is a new project of the Media Research Center (MRC), the official public relations arm of the right-wing propaganda machine. A co-production of the MRC’s Brent Bozell and the team behind RatherBiased, NewsBusters describes their mission as providing, “…immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting.”

With a pedigree like that, you would be right to expect a frothing puddle of drool staining the blognoleum. Their current front page contains six alleged examples of liberal media bias that are actually the work of opinion columnists not reporters. Columnists, of course, are paid to be biased, and they share space/time with their conservative counterparts. One post that does address bona fide news content condemns the liberal slant because the reporter, Terry Moran, asks General Peter Pace, Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if he is concerned about the possibility of civil war in Iraq. How dare Moran ask such a reasonable question?

But the slimiest strand of spittle hanging from the NewsBuster’s lip is the article where they catch Jon Meacham, managing editor of Newsweek, explaining to Tim Russert that a new generation of news consumers may be less than impressed by the Bush administration’s accomplishments in 2005. NewsBusters says:

Meacham zeroes in on Bush as he bemoaned how Bush’s conduct “has raised a lot of questions about fundamental competence of the government, both abroad and at home, whether it’s in Baghdad or in New Orleans.” A conservative might see that as an unintended positive development.

Thank you, Buster Brent Baker, for admitting that conservatives view the tragedies in Iraq and New Orleans as positive because of their ability to paint government as incompetent. Now we know that the true agenda of BushCo all along was to fail so badly that America’s youth would learn to despise its government. Submission Accomplished.