The folks in the suburb where I grew up -- good, honest people I truly care about -- read their paper every single day, and are almost assuredly under the illusion that they're informing themselves about the world. Quite plainly the opposite. I'll say it again: What they're consuming is actually negative information, worse than illiterate blankness in that it provides both a false worldview and confidence in it. Sheer ignorance and an open mind would seem preferable.

In other words, when it comes to national news, I'm almost convinced my hometown would be better off reading blank sheets of paper. That way, when truth eventually surfaces, it wouldn't have to fight six months of falsehoods to be understood.

Given that WMDs are no longer the reason for $200 billion and thousands of lives lost, it's interesting to see how the other rationales are playing out.

The U.S. occupation authority has decided to handpick between 25 and 30 Iraqis to serve on an interim political council to advise U.S. officials on day-to-day governance issues rather than convene a large assembly where Iraqi delegates would debate the form and membership of their transitional administration, a senior U.S. official said today.

Iraqis expected that an interim government would be chosen at a national conference next month attended by hundreds of representatives from the country's religious, ethnic and tribal groups. The assembly was regarded as the first and most significant step by the United States toward sharing power with Iraqis, who have increased their demands for self-governance. The interim government would have quickly assumed responsibility for non-security ministries, such as education and health.

The Bush administration's decision to back away from such an open selection process, which U.S. officials had supported a few weeks ago, is the latest in a series of policy reversals.