I'm not the first diarist to talk about David Broder's
Washingto Post Op-Ed piece today. I do want to talk about that, but from a different angle from some of the earlier comments. I do not regularly read Broder and don't really know much about his politics or the typical quality of his columns, but, today, he provides a perfect example of the state of the media today.
In the Broder article, he mixes in some good
The administration's resistance to setting and enforcing clear prohibitions on torture and inhumane treatment of detainees in the war on terrorism raises legitimate questions about its willingness to adhere to the rule of law.
and
If -- as the Justice Department and the White House insist -- the president can flout that law [FISA], then it is hard to imagine what power he cannot assert.
with some bad:
Interpretations of [the Iraqi WMD] intelligence varied within the government, but the Clinton administration, of which Gore was an important part, came to the same conclusions that Bush did -- and so did other governments in the Western alliance.
Here, we have the same journalist with his facts straight on some issues and GOP talking points on others. Sadly, I find myself thinking that Broder's article really is pretty good considering that it isn't
completely GOP talking points like much of the news these days.
A few years ago, back in the dark ages, large percentages of the American public held demonstrably false beliefs on several key issues. I'm sure you all remember that around two thirds of the public believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks and that around half believed that we actually did find WMDs in Iraq. During the first several years of the Bush administration, we experienced a complete melt-down of our media from which they have yet to recover. (an aside: That's not to say that the media was wonderful pre-Bush either. However, despite the fact that they acted as Ken Starr's minions much of the time, they did function independently from Republican Party every now and then)
The Bush administration has used a strategy of obfuscation of facts, non-disclosure of other facts in the veil of protecting national security, intimidation of individual journalists, intimidation of whistle blowers, favored treatment of pro-administration journalists, and, of course, paying people to spout their talking points while posing as objective journalists. We are finally beginning to see some cracks in Bush's stranglehold on the media, but we are a far cry from having a media as independent as, say, Britain's state-sponsored BBC.
Broder's article is an interesting look in the mind of an American journalist in 2006. Journalists today (excluding people like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly who might as well work for the RNC) don't deal only in facts and falsehoods. There is a third category that I will call "Uncomfortable Facts." (or UFs) UFs are true, with ample evidence backing them up, but are 1) not widely reported, and 2) directly in opposition to the Bush Administration's position. Nearly every journalist in the "traditional media" will not assert UFs as facts because they are completely petrified of what the Bush administration will do in retaliation. So, instead, they lie, avoid the topic entirely, or dance around it until such a time that the evidence becomes so overwhelming that they feel it would be politically unfeasable for the Bush administration to come after them.
It's a truly sickening process to watch as a follower of liberal blogs. A while back, I went up to some of my apolitical friends and said, "Did you hear that the Bush administration outed an undercover CIA agent out of petty political spite?" But of course they hadn't heard that. These friends of mine watch the news, -- and regularly -- but they were totally unaware of Plamegate and thought that I had lost my mind to think a story that big could go completely unreported. This went on for a good six months until the story finally broke (albeit weakly) in the traditional media. This process has repeated itself several times now. Pretty soon, my friends are going to start thinking that I'm an oracle.
Today, David Broder presents us with a column where he weaves facts with denials of UFs tightly together. At some point, Broder will probably feel comfortable to admit that there is ample evidence that Bush "willfully concocted or knowingly distorted the intelligence he received about Saddam Hussein's military programs." And, when he does, he will expect us to forget that he ever said otherwise.
Friends, we must find a way to fix the media. It needs to be our number one concern over all else. We have the truth on our side, so we don't need to concoct intricate strategies to deceive the public and intimdate the media like the Republicans. As Thomas Jefferson said, "An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy." If we can just get journalists to do their jobs, the rest will fall in place.