Earlier this week the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Cynthia Tucker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. The judges had the following little bit to say about Tucker's columns:

Awarded to Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for her courageous, clear-headed columns that evince a strong sense of morality and persuasive knowledge of the community.

OK, let's take a look at a recent column that her syndicate, Universal Press, is using to sell Ms. Tucker:

It's too bad I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is likely to be the only Bush-Cheney confidant prosecuted for an aversion to the truth. There are plenty of unindicted liars walking the halls of the Bush White House.

Not a week goes by without a Bush administration spokesperson uttering a sentence or two that stretch credibility to the breaking point. Clearly, though, the most outrageous fabrications and most scurrilous falsehoods of the past six years were told in defense of the decision to invade Iraq.

...

Bush took the nation to war on a web of lies, sacrificing the lives of men and women who took him at his word. There is precious little honor or integrity in that.

You can read the rest of it, but if you've even glanced at a lefty blog in the past five years, you've already read Tucker's column.

This is courageous, clear-headed writing? Normally opinion pieces at least pretend to be based on facts. Tucker, using the standard left-wing "Bush lied, people died" mantra, manages to write a column that is full of lies -- including "and" and "the."

If this is what it takes to win a Pulitzer, I'm much too talented to be bothered with it.

*On a related note:* The Media Research Center's Brent Bozell points out that conservatives have an uphill battle when it comes to winning Pulitzers for commentary.

*UPDATE* And the idiocy continues. Tucker's most recent column contains this beaut regarding GOP concerns over voter fraud (via Best of the Web Today):

Republicans seem to believe that if they lost an election, somebody cheated. . . . Want to win elections? Try attracting voters instead of repelling them. Try new policies with broad appeal.

Lessee, I don't remember GOP concerns over voter fraud being made nearly as big a deal in the media as the 2000 election in Florida. Who was screaming about cheating then? 2004 in Ohio?

Physician heal thyself.

This garbage is Pulitzer-worthy?