TOM MAGUIRE:

[F]olks who rely exclusively on the NY Times for their news may not know just how far the Kerry campaign side has pushed the boundaries of what we suppose they consider to be responsible dissent.

First, the Times has zero coverage of Joe Lockhart’s infamous quote describing Allawi as a Bush puppet. For comparison, we find 1, 2, 3 Lockhart citings in the Washington Post.

Secondly, the Times has zero coverage of Diana Kerry’s appalling comments in Australia, made as a representative of Americans Overseas for Kerry.

Fair and balanced.

Not fit to print, I guess.

Meanwhile, The Belgravia Dispatch says that Maureen Dowd has become “a willing and increasingly shrill mouthpiece for anyone with a bone to pick with the Bush Administration.”

UPDATE: Here’s Iraqi blogger’s take on Dowd:

This is a laughably parochial reaction. Does Dowd think that Allawi is only talking to her and her ilk? Iraqis know very well that Allawi was flown to the United States for U.S. election purposes. What Dowd forgets is that Allawi knew that Iraqis too were listening to his speech. As a leader, he has to sound positive for his own people about the future of the country. Morale is vitally important to the nation’s future.

It’s exactly that future — the Iraqis’ future — that Dowd can’t be bothered with. To her, it’s an occasion for cheap sarcasm. “Faced with their dystopia,” she writes, amusing herself. “the utopians are scaling back their grand visions for Iraq’s glorious future.”

Critics like Dowd see Iraq and Iraqis as beyond redemption, if not beneath contempt.

The feeling seems to be mutual. . . .