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Changing the tone

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, said yesterday he hopes Democrats seize control of Congress -- with one caveat.

A Democratic-led Congress, he said, must change its ways.

"It won't represent progress that's real," Mr. Lieberman told reporters while stopping at a transportation forum in New Haven. "It's not going to be much of a step forward if there's a new Democratic leadership that doesn't change the tone in Washington."

As recently as Friday, Mr. Lieberman, a lifelong Democrat who was his party's nominee for vice president in 2000, would not say whether he thinks the nation would be better off with Democrats in control of Congress, the Associated Press reports.

Conspiracy theory

"Although a Monday 'CBS Evening News' story included a sound bite from an expert dismissing the idea as 'preposterous,' the newscast treated a far-left conspiracy theory -- about how the Bush administration is somehow manipulating the pump price for gas to help in the election -- as credible and worthy enough to deserve a broadcast network story," the Media Research Center's Brent Baker writes at www.mrc.org.

"Citing how the price of a gallon of gas has fallen to the lowest all year, anchor Katie Couric wondered: 'Is this an election-year present from President Bush to fellow Republicans?' Over a shot of a 'GOP: Grand Oil Party' bumper sticker laying on a dashboard, reporter Anthony Mason asserted: 'Gas started going down just as the fall campaign started heating up. Coincidence? Some drivers don't think so.'

"The man in the car insisted 'I think it's basically a ploy to sort of get the American people to think, well, the economy is going good, let's vote Republican.' Over headlines from Daily Kos and Huffington Post, Mason conceded you can 'call the conspiracy theory crazy,' but he touted how 'it's spreading through Internet blogs and over the airwaves.'"