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The WP and LAT, in my mind, gave up all rights to their flimsy, so-called claims when they allowed everyone else on the planet to the same "fair use" that they find objectionable by you. They have lost not only their credibility, but -- in my humble non-legal opinion -- any claim at all to the distibution and reproduction of their stories. At least when it comes to the Fair Use issue, you have them over a barrel.
Precisely.
www.CommonDreams.org is an EXCELLENT example of this un-challenged violation of their stated copyright policy.

See a site-specific Google search for site:www.commondreams.org "washington post" - with 693 references.

As I understand the limited breadth of the Google-bot technology, this represents THOUSANDS of actual posts on CommonDreams.org with full text articles from the Washington Post - and they CONTINUE to do so, as recently as December 4, 2001. (Plus, CD.org does not even "modify" their full text WP articles with comments.)

If I can find them, a "reasonable man" could, too.

I would prefer to use the New Humanist site as the example, though Common Dreams is also a good choice. I hadn't noticed it before I read the entire CD copy, but on the same page as the article is their disclaimer which is worded almost exactly as the disclaimer that I selectively quoted from the NH site. Unlike CD, however, NH only displays their disclaimer on the home page and does not include it as part of their copy of the article.

Hey Jim, how about asking New Humanist and Common Dreams to file some supporting briefs, since their stated disclaimers seem (at least to my non-lawyer mind) to be the same as Free Republic's? Indeed, CD seems to be flimsier, as they do not make any sort of claim on the right to criticize. How about CCMEP, or InfoShop, neither of whom makes a fair-use claim anywhere on their site (CCMEP even omitted the copyright due the Compost)?