By JOEL MATHIS and BEN BOYCHUK, Scripps Howard News Service

If there's one thing most Americans can agree on in these otherwise-divided days, it's this: The news media is biased.

The war in the Caucasus has been compared by some on the right to Germany's seizure of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938. Officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate, have argued for a forceful American response to the new crisis.

Barack Obama's widely publicized visit to Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe puts renewed focus on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's plans for combating terrorism in the post-Bush era.

Is America too racist to elect a black president?

That's a question raised by a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, which said 30 percent of Americans admit having feelings of racial prejudice. In a previous poll, only about two-thirds of whites said they would be "entirely comfortable" with a black president.

There has long been a well-understood environmental divide in American politics: Democrats have argued that something needs done about climate change, while Republicans have largely disputed whether a problem really exists and, if so, what government can actually do about.