There are a few diaries from early in the Foley-gate news flood proposing that ABC's role in breaking the story might be evidence that the whole thing is a Rove plot. After all, Disney-ABC is clearly deep in the pockets of the GOP since they aired the slanderous Path to 9-11 crockumentary.
I find that pretty hard to believe. Even if this was initially intended as a distraction, it seems pretty clear that the way this story is developing is out of anyone's control and completely toxic to the GOP.
It reminds me of a little snippet I heard from Diane Sawyer on GMA early last week. (Don't worry, it was my mother-in-law watching ABC, not me.) This was part of the discussion of Bill "Big Dog" Clinton's evisceration of Chris Wallace, and apparently ABC had wanted to get BC's comment on the story, and he refused to talk to them. Sawyer said that that was probably because ABC had aired Path to 9-11. She then offered a sad little defensive comment that that show had been aired by ABC Entertainment, which is not the same as ABC News.
Uh-huh. Color me convinced.
If ABC News had REALLY wanted to distance themselves from that televised travesty of truthiness, they would have made the shows lack of fact one of their top stories, BEFORE it aired! They would have broken the reality down in terms simple enough for a child to understand and cranked up the timpani and the slow-mo camera to drive home the emotional impact of their network's entertainment division trying to DECEIVE the American people, which the righteous journalists of ABC news just couldn't ABIDE without setting the record straight.
So I'm very curious who insisted on airing P9-11 despite all the negative coverage everywhere else. It must be someone very high up, and they are probably not done poisoning the well of our discourse.
However. The breaking of the sleaziest IMs thus far revealed in the Foley scandal was done by ABC. And they continue to break important information in this story.
So what's a media-savvy liberal to do?
It's hard to work out equivalency between the effects of different events on the body politic. But I'm making a little deal with myself over this situation.
If Denny Hastert resigns, then I'll go ahead and TiVo Lost. Otherwise, it's BitTorrent time.
How about you? Are you plotting any sort of juicy protest against the Mouse and/or the American Broadcasting Corporation? Has the breaking of Pedo-Gate changed your opinion at all? And more interestingly ...