TODAY'S COLONEL JOHN R. STINGO AWARD GOES TO HOWARD KURTZ

GIVEN IN MEMORY the late New York columnist who, as AJ Liebling put it, never permitted "facts to interfere with the exercise of his imagination," today's award goes to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post for his contribution to the Clinton spin machine:

HOWARD KURTZ, WASHINGTON POST - Clinton's senior advisers have grown convinced that the media deck is stacked against them, that their candidate is drawing far harsher scrutiny than Barack Obama. And at least some journalists agree. "She's just held to a different standard in every respect," says Mark Halperin, Time's editor at large. "The press rooted for Obama to go negative, and when he did he was applauded. When she does it, it's treated as this huge violation of propriety." While Clinton's mistakes deserve full coverage, Halperin says, "the press's flaws -- wild swings, accentuating the negative -- are magnified 50 times when it comes to her. It's not a level playing field."

PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - On the same day the Post featured a story on Giuliani's seedy buddies but has yet to point out that Hillary Clinton had three business partners who went to prison: Webster Hubbell and the two McDougals. And the Post is not alone. We did a Google check over the past year and could find only the following mainstream press coverage of major scandals in HRC's past:

• Hillary Clinton's Bernie Kerick, Webster Hubbell: 5 mentions
• Whitewater: 31 mentions over the entire year
• White House travel office scandal: 6 mentions
• Cattle futures scandal: 5 mentions

There's some hard-hitting journalism for you.