Molly Ivins said yesterday at the end of her column:
Because we are stuck with this administration for another three years, I think it important to begin to get past the defensiveness and drawing attention away and blame games that big messes provoke. And part of that calls on American journalism to get over reporting the Bush administration as though it were a credible source. We need to face facts.
You can read the full column at.
Molly's point is that this administration is using the media to spread propaganda, and the media is not allowing a balanced input against this political propaganda, instead treating what the Bush administration says as facts. While that may be in part true, the media still has at least reported on all the contradictory and outright lies that this administration has been caught telling. As Molly says:
Then there's the problem of reporting within the context of this administration's other propaganda efforts. "We do not torture" and "we are not running a gulag of secret detention centers" are two of the more recent examples, superseding the golden oldies -- like the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud.
I remember a time not so long ago when a politician being caught in a lie or major misrepresentation would likely be thrown out of office or at least hassled forever about the incident. Nixon was brought down for being indirectly involved with a third rate burglary. Now Bush gets caught in spying on Americans against the 4th amendment, torturing prisoners, arresting Americans in America without charges, and going to war on outright lies and more, and all this IS REPORTED. However, something has changed in the American psyche, and Americans just will not turn on this behavior (at least not yet) as they would have before. Probably because they sense they can get away with this continued deceit, this administration is emboldened to make deceit its national policy.
You have got to wonder where this leads. Does this conservative political movement cash in on the post 9/11 fear of Americans to bring about the fascist state that we all distain so much, or does the common sense of Americans (as Molly says in her article)
As one with considerable faith in the common sense of Americans, I think we may yet rescue ourselves from this bootless skunk match over morality by using plain sense instead.
cause an about face back to where lawbreaking and lying have real political consequences in America? It better happen soon if it is going to!