The New York Times is unquestionably the most influential paper in the country. As I was searching though the headlines on the web site, a thought occured to me. What if someone was reading the New York Times and was oblivious to all other news sources? Let's say a college student from 2102 was doing some research and chose to stick to the NYT archives. One thing that definitely occurs to me is that that this person would be absolutely dumbfounded to discover that Bush is most popular president in recent memory. They would see headlines that would continually insinuate that Bush is in trouble, his programs are unpopular, he is in this jam or that jam. The Times is running these headlines with Bush's popularity ratings hovering around 70%. Imagine, for a moment, that these numbers stick. Imagine further that he wins. The poor befuddled college students would read headlines such as:

"Bush's Popularity Among Conservatives Waning" (NYT, 3/8/04)
"Republican divided on Bush selling the out yet again" (NYT, 4/1/04)
"Bush squeaks through the primaries" (NYT, 5/4/04)
"Bush in danger of losing Massachusetts, Maryland" (NYT, 6/10/04)
"New scandal rocks Bush Administration, could hurt campaign (NYT, 7/8/04)
"Last months scandal on Bush having lingering effects, support waning" (NYT, 8/7/04)
"Esteemed Harvard professors criticize Bush for being stupid" (NYT, 9/10/04)
"Esteemed Harvard professors criticize Bush for being deceptively smart, evil" (NYT, 10/7/04)
"Bush voted down by 34% of Americans, wins election anyway" (NYT, 11/3/04)
"Bush urged to move to center to appease those who hate him" (NYT, 12/5/04)
"Bush sworn in despite losing black vote, six states" (NYT, 1/19/04)
"Bush now lame duck" (NYT, 2/5/04)

Just a thought...