Noel Sheppard writes:

It's Memorial Day, and the good folks at the New York Times thought it appropriate to not only attack the President's position on a new G.I. Bill, but also to despicably lambaste him for "[h]aving saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war," and "having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways."

On Memorial Day!

Thankfully, White House press secretary Dana Perino has already issued a written statement concerning this deplorable act by the Times on a sacred day when our nation commemorates its fallen heroes.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once write, "The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function". The Times certainly has the first half of Fitzgerald's equation down could, as James Taranto has noted on numerous occasions. But the jury's still out on the latter portion of Fitzgerald's theorem:

Nice sentiments on Memorial Day, dontcha think? Yet, the Times then stooped to misinformation to strengthen its point:

Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.

They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.

Strained recruiting to the breaking point? I guess the Times editorial board forgot about an Associated Press article on this very subject that was posted at the paper's website on May 13:

The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month, enlisting 2,233 people, which was 142 percent of its goal, the Pentagon said. The Army recruited 5,681 people, 101 percent of its goal. The Navy and Air Force also met their goals, 2,905 sailors and 2,435 airmen. A Defense Department spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that if the Marine Corps continued its recruiting success, it could reach its goal of growing to 202,000 people by the end of 2009, more than a year early.

Fortunately, the White House fired back. As Noel Sheppard noted:Curiously, this was the second time in one week the White House struck out at the press, with the first being Ed Gillespie's letter to NBC concerning the editing of Richard Engel's interview with the President.

Makes one wonder why Bush and Company have waited until his final year in office to start pushing back when the media are out of line.

That should have been an ongoing effort by the Bush White House since, if not day one, then certainly after 9/11.

To be fair to the Times though, its writers might not have known it was Memorial Day, particularly since it's not a holiday worthy of celebration on on Google's splash page.

Unlike, say, Walter Gropius' 125th birthday.