In this business of talking about manipulating the truth, I want to bring two or three things to your attention.  First, there's this introductory blurb about how the press is, in generally, continuing to adhere to the "Reagan was a lucky idiot" theme, in this case dismissing his earth-shaking victory against the Soviet Union as mere luck:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006865.php

Then, see the article to which the above links to, written by Dinesh D'Souza, in which D'Souza unmasks leftist historical revisionism -- that is, the dishonest rewriting of history, and what everyone was saying at the time, after the fact -- about Reagan:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/25318.htm

Particularly striking is Regan's own accurate -- prophetic almost -- 1981 prediction, quoted there:

The West won't contain communism. It will transcend communism. We will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.

Not only did he forsee, in the early days of his presidency, that we would beat communism -- unthinkable at the time, to me at least -- but he also foresaw that it would be dismissed as a bizzarre, unaccountable occurence.

The third thing I'd like to direct your attention to is the following transcript of an interview with Tom Brokaw and Bush, where this blogger has highlighted (in bold) the parts of the interview which were not broadcast (so you may not want to read it all; if so, just see my excerpt below):

http://nerepublican.blogspot.com/2004/06/tom-brokaw-interviews-president-bush.html

Sometimes whole questions and answers, or non-essential phrases were removed -- perhaps edited out for time.  I don't have a problem with that.  But in a few cases, small yet essential phrases were removed, and in such a way that the person watching the interview wouldn't notice they were missing, and other times, the most important points of Bush's answers were removed, in non-contiguous cuts.

This edit bothered me (removed words in bold):

Brokaw: “And you were not greeted as liberators like Vice President Cheney said that you would be.”

Bush: “Well, I think we've been -- let me just -- I think we've been thanked by the people of Iraq. And I think you'll hear more of that from people like Prime Minister Alawi and the foreign minister, who both have repeatedly, ‘Thank you for what you've done, and by the way, help us.’

“It's not easy work to take a country from tyranny to a free society. And we'd been there a little over a year. And it's-- you might recall if you're looking for parallels in World War II, it took about four years to get an active reconstruction effort going.

“And in my speech that you referred to, I make-- pointed out that in the immediate aftermath of World War II, there was a-- the Soviet Union exploded a bomb, that China went communist. It was a question of whether or not the Greek government would go communist.

“The reconstruction effort was halting at best. The marshal plan hadn't been started. And I-- my only point is, these are difficult assignments. It was a difficult assignment then. It's a difficult assignment now. And what America must do is understand the consequences of getting it right. And the consequences of getting right is that a free society in the Middle East is going to help change the country, change the countries in the Middle East and make us more secure and the world more peaceful.”

They've removed all the positive points based in reality from Bush's speech -- especially those that show he has a good historical understanding of how previous post-war reconstructions have gone. As the blogger points out, people need to know this. The media won't tell them. And now they censor Bush's statements of the same. The also censor his mention that many Iraqis have thanked the US.

And censorship like this won't influence public opinion?

This edit was even worse:

Brokaw: “When you were talking about what we're engaged in now, in the context of World War II at the Air Force Academy in the commencement address, you refer other the ruthless and treacherous surprise attack on America that we went through during our time. But that wasn't Iraq, that was al-Qaida.”

Bush: “Right. But-- no question about it. But I also went on to say that part of winning the war on terror is to deal with regimes that harbor terrorists, that feed terrorists. And there's no question that Saddam Hussein did that.

“He had Zarkawai in his midst. He had Abu Nadal. He's been paying families of suiciders to attack Israel. He had also posed a threat with weapons, and he used them.

“And the whole world, in analyzing Iraq, thought that Saddam Hussein was a danger and should disarm. And that's why we got a unanimous declaration out the United Nations's Security Council. So, Iraq is a part of the war on terror. No question it was al-Qaeda that attacked us. But it's also no question that the Taliban harbored al-Qaida.

“And that's why we removed the Taliban out of Afghanistan. In other words, part of the war on terror is not only go after al-Qaida, to go after those who sponsor them, provide them safe haven, and as well as to spread freedom. That's the long-term hope for winning the war, this war that we're now in.

Though Bush never publicly argued there was a direct link between Saddam and 9/11, an ever-increasing body of evidence is emerging which demonstrates such links did indeed exist.

In this case, Bush mentions new evidence we've found which has shown that notorious al Qaeda terrorist Zarkawai (who orchestrated a number of recent attacks) was, in fact, based in Baghdad and operating out of there with full support from Saddam.  This tiny statement, which is very important to the meaning of Bush's answer, is censored.  The same is true of the longer, supporting statements.

It's almost as if the media knows such things are true, but rather than acting to spread news, uses its position of influence to suppress news.

Remember: There is no left-wing bias in the news media. Repeat that over and over until you believe it.