THE FREE PRESS IN FULL SQUEAK

Chicago, America's most underrated metropolis, is the capital of flyover country. So unless you grab one or both of its major dailies while changing planes at O'Hare (or you're a news junkie Web surfer), you're missing out on some entertaining columns. Here's one by Debra Pickett, of the Chicago Sun-Times, headlined "Freedom's just another word for dodging tough questions."

On Friday, wrapping up the news from Washington, Pickett compared it to "a bad Broadway show, the kind that promises to make you laugh and cry and be better than 'Cats.'"

The comedy came first. On Monday, President Bush stood beside Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a "Joint Press Availability." Asked if the Iraqi insurgency was getting more difficult to defeat militarily, Bush answered with a classic Dubya-ism. "No, I don't think so," he said, "I think they're being defeated. And that's why they continue to fight."

It's the sort of answer that makes you pause and scratch your head for just long enough to give him a chance to change the subject. ... But Bush's Orwellian logic -- good for only a cynical chuckle -- was definitely not the comic high point of the afternoon. Instead, for sheer free press-thwarting brilliance, Karzai easily won the day.

After the two men made some opening remarks, talking about the glories of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, Bush announced, "And in the spirit of the free press, we'll answer a couple of questions.

All two of them?

The first question dealt with the military's treatment of Afghan prisoners of war. It was full of facts and details and built-in follow-ups, so you could tell the reporter asking it would probably never get called on again. And, after this rocky start, Bush decided to let the American reporters cool their heels for a while. "Somebody from the Afghan press?" he asked next.

There was an awkward silence, which Karzai gamely tried to fill in by asking, "Anybody from the Afghan press? Do we have an Afghan press?" Then he spotted the single reporter his government had permitted to travel outside Afghanistan. "Oh, here he is," Karzai said, as the room filled with the not-quite-warm laughter of people who suspect they might actually be the butt of a joke but aren't sure.

Which of course they were, if only because "nine other Afghan reporters who were to have followed Karzai on his U.S. visit" couldn't come because "at the last minute, the Karzai government decided to withhold their travel permits for fear the journalists might try to escape their troubled homeland."

Bush seemed genuinely surprised that the Afghan reporters weren't there -- American journalists had been asked to fill in their empty seats -- so it seems that Karzai forgot to mention to his good friend that the whole free press thing has a slightly different meaning in the burgeoning democracy that is Afghanistan.

Since I favor comedy over tragedy when it comes to appreciating Dear Leader's maneuvers, you'll have to click to the rest of Pickett's column for the crying side of the news (if you haven't already), or as Picket writes, "wringing tears from those who would dare dissent."