It was the month of February in 2006, they'll say in the future. That's when the sickness became inescapably evident. As they shovel the last spadeful of dirt on the mainstream media outlets that once received the most attention and respect, they will tell us the symptom was there for all to see: an embarrassing confusion about which of two stories about a vice president of the United States was worthy of major coverage. The story they chose to elevate was the one about Dick Cheney peppering a fellow hunter in Texas with pellets from a 28-gauge shotgun, even though...