DADDY'S NOT DRUNK -- HE PASSED OUT IN THE YARD BECAUSE HE DRANK TOO MUCH SUPERHERO JUICE!

Writing about the Bush budget in The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg prints the legend (emphasis added):

...it was a defiant statement of the principles he has championed for years: the power of tax cuts to drive the economy, the need to spend what it takes to succeed in Iraq and in the broader struggle against terrorism and the necessity of reining in spending on much of the rest of what government does.

Those last two are among "the principles he has championed for years"? Really?

Spending "what it takes to succeed in Iraq and in the broader struggle against terrorism" -- you mean, the guy who's underfunded the war in Afghanistan, underfunded Iraqi reconstruction, underfunded the armoring of Humvees and other equipment needs, underfunded the Department of Homeland Security, and so on and so on?

And "the necessity of reining in spending on much of the rest of what government does"? You mean the big increases in spending under Bush, including non-defense discretionary spending, are just a mass hallucination?

What's baffling about this is that Stolberg contradicts herself later in the article, on both of these points:

...the plan drew criticism from a leading Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is her party’s senior member on the domestic security committee. Ms. Collins said the budget "highlights the chronic and troubling underfunding" of grant programs for first responders.

Mr. Bush has long been criticized by some conservatives as being too willing to tolerate a steady expansion in the size of the federal government; some commentators refer to him, usually not admiringly, as a big-government conservative.

This budget calls for a 4.2 percent increase next year in overall government spending, down from a 4.8 percent increase between last year and this year.

So even though she acknowledges that Bush is a spender and an underfunder of programs connected to the war on terrorism (in paragraphs 22 through 24), Stolberg retypes the dishonest Bush talking points right near the top of the article (paragraph 3).

Stay in D.C. long enough and the hype sounds like fact. That's what's happened to Stolberg.