Ordinary news stories – actually, they’re extraordinary, when you think about it – can turn the average reader into a cynic.

Listen to this from a recent story about culpability that led to detainee abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, no senior military or civilian Pentagon official has been held accountable; only a handful of enlisted soldiers have faced courts-martial for their actions at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. The Navy admiral who authored the latest review of U.S. detention policies has suggested that no one specifically need to be held to account.

“I don’t think you can hold anybody accountable for a situation that maybe if you had done something different, maybe something would have occurred differently.”

Those profound words reportedly came from the mouth of Vice Admiral Albert Church when confronted at a Pentagon news conference. And he didn’t stop there when asserting the report was “no whitewash.”

“The facts are what the facts are,” said the admiral.

Talk about quotes. Take this one from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, after the Senate passed tougher bankruptcy legislation last week that will make it harder for Americans to rid themselves of debt by filing for bankruptcy. Critics said the bill would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face daunting medical bills, that it would hurt single parents and the poor.

But Hatch had this to say: “The short answer is fairness. Those who can pay their bills should pay their bills. That’s the American way.” (The American way has a federal deficit now estimated at close to $500 billion for the fiscal year 2005.)

What was curious about this story was the range of people who reportedly would be affected by the bankruptcy legislation. “Somewhere between 3,675 and 210,000 people annually – from 3.5 percent to 20 percent of those who currently dissolve their debts in bankruptcy – would be disqualified from doing so under the legislation, according to American Bankruptcy Institute.” That “somewhere between” could be somewhere over the rainbow, the cynic would say.

As for the pot of gold under the rainbow: Directly beneath the story about bankruptcy was the Forbes magazine list of the world’s top billionaires – richer and more numerous for the second straight year.

Two stories that ran side by side could make the reader dizzy. In bolder type, the headline said: “Fed reports economy looking up.” The story, in effect, said the economy has continued to expand at a moderate pace, “chugging ahead,” wrote a reporter with The Associated Press. “To keep inflation and the economy on an even keel,” the story said, “the Fed has pushed up the short-term interest rate six times since June 2004.”

In the next column over, the headline read: “Inflation is coming, cautions economist.” This story pointed to sliding stocks on Wall Street because of volatile oil prices, a weak dollar and the acceleration of inflation. All of which left the reader with the nagging question about what’s an “even keel?”

The most extraordinary headline, however, had to be this one: “Greenspan: Fiscal deficit worrisome in long term.”