Speaking of media criticism and The New York Times (scroll down to yesterday's post), Brooklyn's Alex Zucker does a helluva job of picking apart the paper.... Leaps and bounds better than what's-his-face, in my all-too-biased opinion. (Alex is an aquaintance of mine twice over: He's friends with two friends in Prague, and independently friends with two friends in New York.)

Sullivan bitches today of "The coming spin: You can see it now. Chaos. Looting. Disorder. Losing the peace.... By Sunday, or sooner, you-know-who [meaning, presumably, R.W. Apples of the Times] will probably have a front-page 'news analysis' that will describe the joy of liberation being transformed into the nightmare of a Hobbesian quicksand of ever-looming cliches."

Wait. I'm vehemently opposed to cliches, too, but this is supposed to be a criticism? That story is already panning out on CNN right now, and I'm afraid it's not "spin" at all. Sullivan's so-called critique is no better -- not a whit -- than those craven anti-war types surely complaining about the "propagandistic" pictures of Iraqis celebrating the downfull of Saddam. Fact: Iraqis are celebrating. Fact: There is chaos in Iraq. Deal with it already.

The real crime, if there is one, is what Alex points out on Stickfinger: "Not a word about humanitarian aid or relief for Iraq in the Monday, April 7, New York Times. Not a one."