If you’re concerned about the state of journalism these days – and thereby also concerned about the state of the nation – you have to visit, or revisit, two recent delightful commentaries on press performance.

“Commentaries on press performance” may reflect more my perceptions than what the authors intended, but judge for yourself.

The material is poles apart – from a comic strip in my hometown paper, The Des Moines Register, to the op-ed page of the Sunday New York Times.

In the Non Sequitur comic strip, little Danae is the most perceptive child to grace the comics since the departure of Calvin and the Calvin and Hobbes strip. From time to time, her insights on how easy it is to manipulate the press do the work of dozens of media watchdogs.

Most recently, instead of opening a sidewalk lemonade stand, Danae opens a “think tank,” offering scientific research and theories – for a price – to buttress anyone’s point of view. Predictably, in the interest of “balanced” coverage, the news media publicize any research Danae throws their way – including this “newsworthy” item produced and paid for by the fast-food industry:

“New research says the bubonic plague was caused by the absence of transfats in people’s diets.” Take a look at that strip and some previous days’ reports on science as covered by the news media.

Less amusing, more sobering, is Jon Meacham’s piece -“A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation,” in the Oct.7, New York Times.

A reading of his piece makes you wonder why the news media continue to parrot the religious right and a Christian born-again litmus test for any public servant. (A catalyst for Meacham’s article was Sen. John McCain’s assertion that “The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”)

As a teaser, here are the closing lines of the piece by Meacham, editor of Newsweek:

In the 1790s, in the waters off Tripoli, pirates were making sport of American shipping near the Barbary Coast. Toward the end of his second term, Washington sent Joel Barlow, the diplomat-poet, to Tripoli to settle matters, and the resulting treaty, finished after Washington left office, bought a few years of peace. Article 11 of this long-ago document says that “as the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” there should be no cause for conflict over differences of “religious opinion” between countries.

The treaty passed the Senate unanimously. Mr. McCain is not the only American who would find it useful reading.

Meantime, I’m waiting for the U.S. Senate to wake up and repeal Article 11 of the Barbary Coast treaty – lots of “Danaes” have the research to support repeal, I’m sure.