"Compared to what?" and "At what cost?"

Thomas Sowell has two questions for our disloyal press.

It is not just the left's agenda on economics, race or the environment that cannot withstand a serious examination in the light of these questions. The whole current endless carrying-on in the media about prison abuses in Iraq could not stand up under these questions.

No one defends the abuse of Iraqi prisoners or thinks that those who are guilty should get off without punishment. But compared to what?

Senator Ted Kennedy compares what happened in the prison to what happened under Saddam Hussein, suggesting that it is the same thing, just "under American management." People in Iraq don't seem to think so -- and they know from personal experience what it was like under Saddam.

And, if any of them were left standing, he would administer the coup de gras with this question: "What hard evidence do you have?"