The Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. If they wanted to be a bit closer to the past and present reality, they'd have a Propaganda category. What would that look like? Let's imagine:

Best Propaganda: This year's award goes to several newspapers: the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, USA Today, San Diego Union-Tribune, and many more for their reporting on illegal aliens taking Katrina jobs from American hurricane victims. Even though those papers probably weren't working together, their coverage seemed like it. They offered several stories on American citizens being warehoused in hotels outside New Orleans, while illegal aliens from Mexico and other countries were brought in to do work that those Americans should have been doing. The propaganda associated with this effort is some of the most un-American the Prize Board has ever seen, and we congratulate those sources for their efforts

Best Propaganda (Runner-up): Jeff Franks of Reuters for "Immigrants find opportunity in ruined New Orleans". That piece contains this odious anti-American bit: "The immigrant workers do not feel too threatened by competition from the local Americans. They point to the back of the parking lot where the only "gringos" in sight are sleeping on sheets of cardboard or sitting on wooden boxes, surrounded by empty beer cans and booze bottles." The Prize Board concludes that Jeff Franks writes like he could be working for one of America's enemies, and we wish him the best of luck in next year's competition.

Lifetime Achievement Award: This year's award goes to Nina Bernstein of the New York Times. She's actually been spreading propaganda even longer than last year's winner Bart Jones, and it's good to see her finally win it.