(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Page One of today’s L.A. Times says:

From front to back and on nearly every page, President Obama’s new budget plan delivers a stark message: It’s time for the rich to lighten the load on the middle class.

That’s right, rich folks! You’ve been avoiding your fair share of the taxes for far too long! Stop putting so much of the load on the middle class!

Of course, this is nonsense. In 2006, one of the Evil Years of the Bush Administration, the top 10% of wage earners paid fully 70% of federal personal income taxes. The top 25% paid 86%. The top half paid 97%. Numbers were similar for other years.

Now turn allll the way back to Page A14. Here’s the first paragraph you see:

Some Republicans denounced the priority shift in Obama’s budget as class warfare, and the budget is sure to face several tests as it works its way through Congress. Also, some economists warned that higher taxes on the affluent could reduce their entrepreneurial energy and were unfair because upper-income Americans already pay a large share of the government’s total revenue.

Amazing how they always manage to snip the article just before the part that helps undo the false implication on the front page. And the part that sets forth the Republican point of view.

Well, I’m sure it’s a coincidence. Just like all those other times I’ve documented over the years.

Lee Stranahan: “You’re damn right I wanted the Iraq war to fail.”

UPDATE: I should make clear that if you read his whole article, he’s actually making a very good point: you can oppose your opponent without thinking he’s evil. He says he thinks Rush wants Obama to fail because Rush loves America and thinks Obama’s policies would be bad for it. He wants the Iraq war to fail because he loves America and thinks the war is bad for it.

The premise that someone wants the Iraq war to fail bugs me because I equate failure with more soldiers dying. (Rush’s saying he wants Obama to fail also bugs me because I equate failure with more Americans being out of work and suffering due to a bad economy.) But one could argue that the failure of the Iraq war could conceivably save soldiers’ lives — if you think “success” means we’ll stay there for years and subject soldiers to more danger.

In any event, I like his overarching point:

It’s wrong to leap from “I oppose policies that I’m opposed to” to “I want people to suffer and die.”

I agree. Both sides are quick to conclude that the other side is evil. In rare cases, they’re right — on both sides. But we needn’t demonize the opposition to passionately oppose their policies as wrongheaded.

News is breaking now at ABCNews. No story yet, just a banner headline.

UPDATE: AP news alert here.

Media Matters headline: Coulter suggests she might let three U.S. cities be bombed, depending on which cities they are.

Really? I’ve transcribed the video at the link:

My favorite Obama answer during the debates on national security was: “What would you do if, during this debate, God forbid, three U.S. cities were hit simultaneously?” And he said he’d send ambulances. And John Edwards said: “And I’d be right there chasing them.”

See, it shows you how different Obama and I are. I would have said: “Which three U.S. cities?”

She’s not suggesting that she would let three U.S. cities be bombed. She’s saying her response as President would depend on which three U.S. cities were bombed.

[Quickly dons top hat and smoking jacket] Now, I don’t happen to think that’s a particularly funny joke. And I still find it eerie that people are clapping and laughing at “jokes” like that — in essence, saying “ha, ha, I’d wouldn’t help the Democrats if they got bombed.” [Removes hat and jacket.]

But that doesn’t excuse Media Matters lying about it.

Jeff Goldstein is (not really) at CPAC, and he’s spotted some of you there!

[T]he occasional Patterico reader marches by with a big sign reading “NOT IN MY NAME,” a kind of surreal sight, given that they’re all wearing smoking jackets and top hats and wagging their fingers indiscriminately at anyone who looks like s/he might listen to Rush Limbaugh without the requisite sense of sophisticated coastal irony.

In addition to your smoking jackets and top hats, you wear blazers. And sip tea.

I don’t even know you people.

Of course, Romney won first place. But that’s not as surprising as third and fourth place:

Romney took 20 percent of the vote, followed by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with 14 percent, Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 13 percent, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with 10 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 10 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 7 percent.

I didn’t see that coming

UPDATE: Now Politico is saying Paul and Palin tied:

Romney took 20 percent of the vote, followed by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with 14 percent, Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 13 percent, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with 13 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 10 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 7 percent.

There is no indication that they changed the post. Oh well . . . aren’t the Politico folks from Big Media? Well, there you go — that means their standards are higher (i.e. they make corrections without telling you).

Here is the proof that I correctly quoted what they initially said.