The New York Times runs a piece today on how the Bush administration has abandoned the phrase “stay the course” when it comes to speaking about Iraq.

Interesting.

But then, I already knew that. Because yesterday I watched a YouTube video of Jon Stewart on Andrew Sullivan’s blog, in which Stewart showed Bush using the phrase “stay the course” again and again, and then showed footage of RNC chair Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press saying something like, “It’s not ‘stay the course,’ it’s ‘win by adapting.'”

The nature of propaganda, Stewart pointed out, is that it has no internal logic; nothing that came before matters.

Also interesting.

But the real point is, Jon Stewart had it before the Times did, and Andrew Sullivan had it before the Times did, and hundreds of thousands of people who watched the show or the YouTube video had it before the Times did.

Kinda makes you feel sorry for newspapers, doesn’t it?