Part of the Story. CBS's news site is running a story on the wage gape between whites and blacks:

In 1999, during a boom economy, Shapiro said, black middle-class families on average had one-fourth of the wealth of similarly educated, similarly employed white middle-class families.

The disparity was even starker across all income groups — black families as a whole had only 10 cents in wealth for every dollar white families had, according to government figures.

Why is this so? According to the story:

There are historical reasons — generations of poverty, a legacy of slavery and laws that kept them from education, housing and good jobs. But advocates say there also is persistent discrimination in mortgages and other loans.

There are other factors at work that CBS chooses to hide. Statistically, a much larger percentage of blacks families are headed by a single mother than white families. This has a huge effect. Single, working mothers just don't earn as much as a two-income family. If you take this difference into account and only look at two-parent families or only look at single-parent families then the differences between whites and blacks are much less stark.

But then CBS couldn't run a Martin Luther King Day story on white discrimination against blacks.

I just heard George Stephenopolis tell a lie on Nightline. He said that the Bush administration put a ban on showing flag-draped coffins shortly after the war began. The policy actually began under his father during the Gulf War and was continued during the Clinton administration. But the truth doesn't make Bush look nearly as bad.

Speaking of Bush, Newsweek's cover story on Bush s at odds with the way Bush is normally portrayed. Typically Bush is depicted as the front man for Dick Cheney or Karl Rove. This story says that he is a tough, hands-on administrator who hates yes-men. Among other things, Bush was the one who decided that a number of cabinet members had burned out. Rather than purging the White House of dissenting opinions, Bush is clearing the decks for a second-term agenda.

The official story was that many of the cabinet officials were ready to move on; members would volunteer their own resignations. But as the election neared, several began to waver; it became clear they'd need to be shown the door. Other presidents might leave the tough stuff to subordinates, but Bush wanted to do the job himself. When it came time to say farewell, the exchanges in the Oval Office were surprisingly emotional. "They were shocked and really hurt, and that hurt him," says one confidant.

As he starts his final four years in the White House, President Bush is by far the biggest agent of change in his own cabinet. Whether he's remaking his team or plotting his second-term policies, Bush's leadership style belies his caricature as a disengaged president who is blindly loyal, dislikes dissent and covets his own downtime. In fact, Bush's aides and friends describe the mirror image of a restless man who masters details and reads avidly, who chews over his mistakes and the failings of those around him, and who has grown ever more comfortable pulling the levers of power.

Read the whole thing.