So why didn't Eccleston report the fact that the Dems' AWOL charges had been fully discredited? Why didn't he also report the fact that it is impossible for anyone in the National Guard or the reserve, including Bush, to go AWOL while in a drill status? Why? Because AWOL does not apply to those who miss drills.

Running with the Dem line that Bush is stupid, Eccleston claimed that Bush's father had to use his influence in "overcoming a very low aptitude score, for [Bush's] acceptance into the Texas National Guard's air wing." Compare this malicious statement with the Boston Globe's quote from retired Col. Maurice H. Udell who had been Bush's flight instructor: "I would rank him in the top 5 percent of pilots I knew." This raises a question that the politically bigoted likes of Eccleston never seem to ask: How can anyone who is supposed to be as stupid as Bush earn two degrees and then learn to fly fighter jets?

That there is not, and never was, a shred of evidence to support this malicious canard sure as hell didn't stop lefty Eccleston from trying to give it credence. Now what was Eccleston's source for his dad-got-him-in story? Why, other Bush-haters. (This is what passes for investigative journalism among leftwing reporters). Even the very partisan Los Angeles Times investigated this allegation and concluded, somewhat churlishly, that there was no evidence that George Bush Sr, or anyone else for that matter, had used pressure or influence to get the young George into the Guard.

In fact, the Dallas Morning News, which also investigated the allegation, also concluded that Bush had been accepted because he was one of the very few applicants qualified and willing to train for a year learning to fly F-102s. Perhaps Eccleston finds this kind of evidence too simple and transparent. Perhaps that's why he prefers to report the Dems' spiteful allegations instead.

In an apparent effort to draw a striking contrast between Bush and his Democratic opponents, Eccleston dragged Max Cleland into the article, calling him a war hero "who lost an arm and both legs in Vietnam, and then his Senate seat in Georgia in 2002." Eccleston was obviously trying to convey the impression that Cleland received his injuries in battle. He didn't: he got them in an accident when he picked up a live grenade. Moreover, as Cleland himself admitted, he was no war hero.

Trying to make Republicans look like rats Eccleston claimed that they "attacked Cleland for voting against Bush's Homeland Security Bill — failing to note he backed a Democrat bill that wasn't much different." This is a lie. What this Bush-hater tried to do was use the Homeland Security Bill to buy off the AFL-CIO at the expense of national security. (Incidentally, Zell Miller, a Democratic Senator from Georgia, blamed Daschle for Cleland's defeat. Another fact that Eccleston somehow missed).

The unpleasant truth is that Cleland is a Bush-hating hypocrite. And this is something Eccleston would never report. For example, Eccleston sympathetically quotes Cleland's complaint that the man who beat him never served in Vietnam. Of course, he and Eccleston never complained when Clinton, a draft dodger, beat two WW II heroes.

Regardless of one's feelings about Cleland or his politics, it should be clear that his injuries do not make him a war hero. And talking about war heroes, isn't it interesting to compare the media's treatment of Kerry — a man who not only turned against his country but also viciously slandered its troops while aiding and abetting the enemy — with the treatment they handed out to Oliver North.

Now this is a very real scandal and it has nothing to do with Bush and everything to do with the media taking its marching orders from Terry McAuliffe, the then Democrat National Committee Chairman. When he told the Dems' media stooges to run with the mythical AWOL story, they ran. This disgraceful collaboration has been carefully monitored by the MRC (Media Research Center).

The MRC revealed that from "Feb. 1-16, ABC, CBS and NBC aired 63 National Guard stories or interview segments on their morning and evening news programs. That's far more coverage than Bill Clinton's draft-dodging scandal received in 1992. Back then, the three evening newscasts offered 10 stories on Clinton's complete evasion of service; this year, those same broadcasts pumped out 25 stories on whether Bush's acknowledged service was fully documented. Eccleston inadvertently exposed the driving force behind the media's phony AWOL scandal when he admitted that

the long-standing question about Mr Bush's military record was revived by Democrat party chairman Terry McAuliffe.

Nevertheless, that McAuliffe's fingerprints are all over this media hit job didn't seem to deter Eccleston from joining the Dems' pack of media liars in their efforts to destroy the Bush presidency. In another sparkling piece of original journalism Eccleston approvingly quoted Paul O'Neill, a former Bush cabinet member, as saying that "George W. Bush made plans to invade Iraq soon after he entered office, not in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US . . ." (Bush 'planned Iraq war before 9/11, The Australian, 12 January 2004).

Eccleston had been around long enough to know that passing off a quote as being true when it isn't is just the same as lying. What's more, it's part of his job to check out quotes and allegations. (Fat chance of that ever happening if he thinks the results will favour Republicans). If he had done so he would have known that the so-called Bush plan to rid the world of Saddam originated in the Clinton White House and was ratified by Congress in 1997.

Eccleston just can't help himself. Regardless of the situation he always seems to manage to turn it against Republicans. The ricin scare in Washington neatly illustrates this point. When in late 2001 a number of letters contaminated with anthrax were posted to reporters Eccleston immediately pointed the finger at "a right-wing nutter rather than an Islamic group" (Nation's germ of suspicion may be deadly diversion, The Australian, 20 October 2001)

Now why did this brilliant investigative journalist think that it might be a right-wing crazy and not a bin Laden crazy that was responsible for the anthrax attacks? Because the "prime targets were four media outlets." Now do you get it, as well as the man's conceit? But when ricin was apparently found in Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office only a short time afterwards Eccleston did not rush into print with accusations of leftwing crazies at work.

What made his smug accusation particularly bad in my view is that he cribbed it from another reporter. On 15 October the New York Times published a sly report by Felicity Barringer in which she approvingly quoted a Harvard University official who suggested right-wingers might be responsible for the anthrax attacks because the media "has not been a particular target of Islamic fundamentalist groups or groups we associate with Sept. 11. It has been a target of right-wing groups in America" (New tactic of terrorists is to attack messengers).

America's left-wing media outlets have been a target of 'right-wing' criticism, not right-wing terrorist attacks. Of course it was in the interests of bin Laden's terrorists to attack media outlets. This would help spread panic and fear, which is was one of the objects of his terrorist campaign. Or perhaps Eccleston has yet to notice that fact. Along with the fact that one of the letters was posted in Malaysia. (That must have been it. The Aryan Brotherhood or the Klan was recruiting Malaysian Moslems).

What makes ideological dingbats like Barringer and Eccleston think that a callous American-hating fanatic who snuffed out the lives of 3000 New Yorkers would hesitate to wage biological warfare against the American media? Does this pair think that a murderous creature like bin Laden makes so-called liberal distinctions? Talk about media bird brains. I suppose it could have been worse, Eccleston could have cribbed from the notorious left-wing Alexander Cockburn who edits CounterPunch. Cockburn endorsed an item that implied the whole thing was, you guessed it, a corporate/CIA/Iraqi conspiracy involving George Bush Sr. How’s that for left-wing paranoia? But this is the same Cockburn who justified the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds:

If ever a country deserved rape it’s Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too.

It gets a little tiresome having to constantly deal with political bigots like Eccleston. Unfortunately his reporting is still characteristic of what passes for journalism today, twisting the news and omitting important facts in order to promote a journalist's ideology. One only has to think of the repulsive Andrew Gilligan and the response of his BBC bosses and media supporters to his coldly premeditated lies to get a reasonable grasp of how thoroughly corrupt the media have become.

The following articles detail Eccleston's political bigotry and his contempt for honest reporting. Unfortunately Eccleston typifies modern 'journalism'.

A lying journalist v. President Bush

Aussie journalist joins Gore's election campaign

Condoleezza Rice branded a liar by journalist

Lefty journalists attack Republican wolf ad. They think it's "scary"

Reporter smears President Bush with cocaine and AWOL charges

A Rupert Murdoch journalist tries to belittles President Reagan's achievements

How Rupert Murdoch's Australian carrion leapt on Linda Chavez

How the Bush-hating media abetted Richard Clarke’s lies and attempts at character assassination

A Murdoch reporter reveals his loathing for Bush and Israel

A Murdoch reporter joins the Democrats against Bush

How one of Rupert Murdoch's reporters twisted the news about Bush and WMDs

Murdoch's rag lies about the CIA and Bush

Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor