Today's third news story, "Bush Loosens Controls on Weapons for China," with the subhead "Hu Arrives, Navy to Increase Pacific Fleet," uses the US visit of Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao to frame a treatise on security. The article, by Rachel Donadio, analyzes the competing interests angling to shape America's China policy: business and security. Which is all well and good, if Ms. Donadio had done any of the work herself. But instead, the piece is a poorly disguised rehash of an article by security expert Gary Milhollin, culled from the May issue of Commentary.

The article quotes Milhollin at length, and takes his assessments as unquestionable fact. He asserts that economic interests in China are preventing the United States from pursuing real security goals, citing a Chinese refusal to verify how it uses certain American technology, which could be used both in a medical instrument or a thermonuclear device. From there, the article goes directly into a statement by Milhollin that "the next generation of Chinese nuclear weapons are being developed with American equipment." Seems like a pretty massive leap in logic to us. Milhollin is a respected analyst, but his arguments don't stand up when sliced into razor-thin comments.

The story, which by a few paragraphs in has forgotten all about Hu's fairly benign visit, examines competing China bills in the House and Senate, one of which, supported by the Bush administration, may weaken export controls. That the administration might have a different opinion on the matter isn't apparently an issue, since the Sun doesn't seem to have tried to hard to get their side of the story (one unreturned phone call is not an excuse for uneven reporting). Donadio apparently didn't call the Chinese Consulate, either, until last night (this is funny: "A spokesman for the Chinese Consulate could not be reached for comment on Sunday evening." You don't say. Sunday?). In fact, the only other source is Stephen Bryen, a member of the US-China Security Commission and a fellow traveler of Milhollin's. The last 150 words of the story drift back into a discussion of Hu, saying, oddly, "it is unclear where Mr. Hu was born and few can predict how he will lead China [when he takes over for Jiang Zemin next year]." Because if there's one thing we can be sure about those Chinese, it's that knowing their place of birth is key to knowing what they'll do with the nukes.

Needless to say, the story is a bit schizophrenic, roaming from reports of Hu's visit to descriptions of bills in Congress. Even the headline and subhead express three totally disparate ideas: Hu's arrival, Bush's weapons policy for China and the Navy's Pacific presence. But all the fluff is really obfuscation — the story is a rehash of Milhollin, nothing more. Which leads Smarternysun to wonder: Why even bother with a story when it could have reprinted the Commentary article?

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Today's barely-below-the-fold article, "Anti-Wahabi Protest Erupts in Flushing," makes some bizarrely qualified claims about Islam and public opinion. The article, accompanied by a three-column photograph above the fold, reports of a Shiite protest that "erupted" in Flushing against Wahabism ("the strain of Islam that rules Saudi Arabia"). But the article itself notes that the rally was "in part a religious ceremony." Religious ceremony, virulent protest — the Sun isn't one to split hairs.

Admittedly, the angle of Shiite dissent within the Muslim world is interesting enough to warrant an article, but not the conclusion Gershman draws in the third paragraph, while he is still presumably reporting the event. He says, "The fact that hundreds of Muslims in Queens would gather on a rainy Sunday for an anti-Wahabi rally is at least anecdotal evidence for the strength of anti-Wahabi sentiment among American Muslims."

Why would the Sun editorialize in the third paragraph of a front-page story? We're left to wonder by what standards the Sun judges "the strength of anti-Wahabi sentiment." A responsible story would have reported how many Shiites there are in the country, and would have explained why 300 people in Queens represents any significant showing of solidarity, aside from the reporter's speculation. After all, Flushing is hardly a hotbed of American politics, of any kind.

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FORGEA WATCH: The ongoing saga of Forgea — the dog "finally rescued from her derelict ship" after weeks adrift on the abandoned vessel, which the Sun has followed unflaggingly — has finally made it above the fold. At first, the story was being reported daily in three- or four-paragraph dispatches at the bottom right side of the page. But as Smarternysun observed last week, it began inching northward little by little until, finally, it passed the fold today. Perhaps in another week, we can expect to see news about the dog's travails in the lead spot, accompanied by a four-column photograph.

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WIRE WATCH: Smarternysun congratulates the Sun on publishing just under 33 percent of original content in its news coverage. Today brings us 22 stories, of which a full seven are originals. The rest, as usual, are AP and Daily Telegraph feeds.