An overwhelming number of our troops support President Bush. This drives the MSM mad. So mad they lied about his Thanksgiving trip to Iraq in 2003. So mad they’ll flog anti-military stories that undermine national security.

And have no journalistic merit whatsoever.

NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell was breathless last night over her military-bashing “scoop” about the “staging” of a Q&A between President Bush and the troops.

Newsbusters breaks down the story for you (via Lucianne) and points to Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon, one of the few sane journalists in the White House press corps, who tried to restore sanity to the Bush-deranged MSM on FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume last night:

During the panel segment, Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon, responding to a comment from Morton Kondracke: “You mentioned that this press conference was scripted and the administration has taken a huge hit today about, you know, they scripted this press conference. It’s funny, but when that reporter back in December asked Rumsfeld about armor and that question had been planted by the reporter — I’m sorry, the soldier asked Rumsfeld and the question had been planted by a reporter, I didn’t hear any outcry from the press, but now that we’re rehearsing it from the Pentagon we’re hearing all this talk about it.”

Reader Michele e-mailed last night:

My husband was in the military 40 years ago and the USO entertainers were performing for Christmas. The soldiers were told how to behave during the taping i.e.. where to look, when to applaud, etc. POINT: They have been rehearsing the troops for decades.

I’d also add that NBC’s news division in particular has some gall making such a big fuss over anyone else staging things.

Same goes for the rest of the MSM.

Fake news? They know whereof they speak.

(Can you say “projection?”)

Look for the talking heads to hype this story all weekend. I have no doubt the news producers will be prompting political commentators to, you know, “Get angry.”

But that’s not “staging.” It’s their therapy.

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Other reax…

Jonah Goldberg:

“There is other news in the world. A profession itself so married to theatricality should have let this one go with a mild wrist-slap, or “in other news,” report. But you can fully expect the folks who thought that gay guy from Talon News (what was his name?) was the second gunman of the Rove Conspiracy will once again slam their tinfoil hats on the floor and go batty over this. “

Iowa Voice dissects this AP story on the non-story.

Rob at Say Anything:

This is standard operating procedure for most major media interviews. The participants almost always know what is going to be asked them and the order in which it will be asked. I hardly think any of this warrants the “staged” charge issued in the headline of this article.

Blogs 4 Bush: Staged? Hardly.

Joe Gandelman has a big round-up of both sides.

ABP: “Yet another example of pathetic MSM bias.”

Dafydd at Big Lizards. Read the whole thing.

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More!

Laura Lee Donoho:

The media has been guilty of creating an appearance of spontaneous news for years. My husband had the opportunity to see this odious practice for himself when he was deployed to Somalia in 1992.

One day as my husband and part of his battalion was out in a convoy he saw a CNN newscrew near a group of Somalis. The crew and the Somalis were blocking the road that my husband’s convoy was attempting to go down so my husband checked into what was going on.

What he saw upset him so much that he called me that very day the first chance he got. He was livid…