There is only one thing missing from Jill Zuckman's fawning performance at the feet of her and the Left's present pinnacle of Bush-hating/America-hating idolatry--Dick Durbin--and that is a stained blue dress.  As Tuesday's slander by Dick Durbin led into Wednesday's demands for apologies, which led into Thursday's digging-in, Friday brought with it a full-out Democratic embrace of Durbin's heinous attack on this country, its military, and those who serve.  While it appeared, frankly, that all sides were fairly shocked and amazed at the vile and disgusting hatred that Durbin spewed earlier this week, the Senator and the Hate America First Party had two choices: One, step back from the remarks, explain what you really meant to say, and sincerely and with heart and soul, beg forgiveness for the harm your words have caused.  Second, dig in your heels, embrace Durbin's attacks, and blame the other side for making Durbin say what he said.  The Left, of course, chose the second, thoroughly dishonorable path.

Along with that second choice, necessarily comes the outside backup forces, whose efforts seek to make the words of Dickie Durbin acceptable, and seem less hate-filled and disgusting than they really are.  Those backup forces are known here as the Olde Media, and they are certainly hard at work.  The item at issue is a prime example of just how outlandishly low and unprofessional a journalist can become when worshipping at the feet of the Left's hatemonger of the moment.  Jill Zuckman, of the Chicago Tribune, makes it all seem so easy in Friday her report on Durbin's comments.  Her slant (and I do mean slant) on the story is how Durbin has been thrust into the role of savior of Democracy, the Democratic Party and all that's good in America. 

All at once, gushing Ms. Zuckman, describes poor Democratic stalwart Dick Durbin, under political fire from the Republicans, as follows:

With his unassuming Midwestern demeanor and genial bearing, Dick Durbin is no one's vision of a political street fighter.  Yet Illinois' senior senator--who is growing in stature as a national Democratic voice and a font of strategic and communications advice for a party eager to regain its footing--found himself on the receiving end of Republican outrage this week.

Zuckman does briefly note the comments which have gotten Durbin into trouble, but what Durbin actually said is of secondary importance to the story.  For her, the story is the ferocity of the reaction to Durbin, and not what Durbin has said.  The issue which she spins in her story is precisely that which Durbin & Company (Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, and on and on) have pushed as their response to Republican response: It's not about us its about them.  Zuckman bites the entire company line, hook, line and sinker, and regurgitates it like a cow bring back up its cud.  This is the only possible explanation for the manner in which Zuckman casts that which has caused the outrage.  Just a few paragraphs after repeating Durbin's words, she seems to have forgotten what he said, and makes the most unbelievable statement about the week's developments:

Thursday, conservatives' anger at what they portrayed as a comparison between the U.S. and some of history's most murderous regimes was boiling.

Huh?  What!?  Did you by any chance actually read what Dickie "D" said.  I know that you quoted some of it in your story, but did you actually read it?  Let's look at what Durbin said again, okay?  First Durbin recited the contents of an e-mail from someone purportedly with the FBI, which, we have now learned (first the sender of the e-mail) was but a brief description of a single prisoner handcuffed to the floor of his cell.  Durbin then commits the slander that should (but won't) lead to his utter political castigation:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulag, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings.  Sadly . . . this was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Did you read it that time, Ms. Zuckman?  Those were the words of Dick Durbin.  Senator Dick Durbin.  Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.  Not-Republican Dick Durbin.  Not-conservative Dick Durbin.  Not-anyone-else-but Dick Durbin.  Those were his words.  His comparisons.  His choice of historical allusions and analogies.  Not those of conservatives.  It was not conservatives who made the "comparison between the U.S. and some of history's most murderous regimes," it was Mr. Durbin. 

It was Mr. Durbin who said that if he had not told us that what he was describing were the actions of Americans, we would have thought it to have been those of some of history's most murderous regimes.  Now it's my turn to make a statement, and ask some questions.  First the statement:

The Americans treat their prisoners like the Nazis during World War II, who mercilessly, ruthlessly and dispassionately slaughtered more than six million Jews, and others deemed "inferior."  They treated their captives like the Soviets treated their tens of millions exiled to the cold, to the slave labor camps, to their almost certain deaths for decades in their gulags.  And those Americans displayed the same human concern and mercy for their prisoners that Cambodian dictator Pol Pot displayed for the two million he killed as he enslaved and wiped out anyone he considered affiliated with his opposition.  This is how the Americans treat their prisoners.

Now, two questions of my own:

First: If I had read this to you and did not tell you that it was an American Senator, an elected member of the government and citizen of the United States of America, who had said this, you would most certainly believe that it had been an enemy of this country who had said it, maybe North Korean President Kim Jong Il, Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, or perhaps even Osama bin Laden.

Second: If I had read to you the Chicago Tribune story written by Jill Zuckman, slobbering all over the shoes of Dick Durbin, painting as courageous his hateful attacks upon this country and its military, and hadn't told you that it was by Ms. Zuckman for the Trib, you would most certainly believe that it had come from Al Jazeera.