Excellent editorial and question from Buzz Flash. Have wondered this myself. This man had a free run at starting his war in Iraq. Now he seems to be getting a pass on the escalation of the war even though americans, the generals, rest of the world feels this is certainly the wrong direction to be moving in by putting even more of our soldiers in harm's way.
Will the american media (corporate) ever become honest again?
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Supposing you are playing a game of poker with a guy you know always cheats to win the hand. Whenever you bring it up, the other players all accuse of being a bad sport and unfairly attacking the character of the hustler.
They tell you that he is a deacon of his church, a good family man, and is kind to grandmothers and babies. They tell you that he used to be a reprobate, but found Jesus and now is a God-fearing man, and that it is out of bounds to claim that he is winning unfairly or pulling a con.
In short, you become the target of accusations even though you are the one that is being victimized.
Well, my friends, that is exactly the state we find ourselves in today via Bush.
The corporate media, with message points from the RNC and Karl Rove, have made the characters of Bush and Cheney off limits, as if they were born with some sort of eternal dispensation that keeps their motives from being questioned.
This, of course, keeps them from being accountable for their endless broken promises, lies and abysmal performances.
When BuzzFlash began its online news and commentary service, nearly seven years ago, one of our motivations was drawing light on how hypocritical the Republicans and their mob of supporters were and are.
You had the Clintons who were vilified for 8 years, during the longest period of peace and prosperity in America’s recent history, on "character issues" that were either fabricated or had nothing to do with the performance of the presidency (no, sex doesn’t affect one’s ability to govern, unless the GOP uses it to waste two years of the nation’s time in a pointless effort at impeachment.) Then you have Bush and Cheney, who have presided over the worst period of war, debt and turmoil in America’s recent history, but the mainstream media considers it – with rare exceptions – verboten to question the character and motivation of two men who have earned an "F" for their performance.
Why the double standard?
Let’s take a look at a moment of rare veracity in politics that occurred the other day. Nancy Pelosi laid it on the line in regards to Bush’s years of failure in Iraq, responsible for more than 3,000 American GI deaths, hundreds of thousand Iraqi deaths, and hundreds of billions of dollars in our taxpayer money going to war profiteering.
Pelosi lucidly and forcefully declared: "The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way, that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way," Pelosi said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"Those particular comments were poisonous,"
Perino responded. "I think questioning the president's motivations and suggesting that he, for some political reason, is rushing troops into harm's way, is not appropriate, it is not correct, and it is unfortunate because we do have troops in harm's way."
Forget for a minute that the White House statement was a model example of how to use a logical fallacy and make it sound indignant, what is important here is how the statement puts the character and motivation of Bush off the table.
Because, in 2007, we are still at the point where the corporate press generally adopts the primitive notion that Democrats have only bad character and partisan motivations – and Republicans like Bush and Cheney are only thinking about "the good of the country."
Say what?
Actually, this is integrally related to the GOP bond with the religious right. In essence, press coverage buys the implicit notion that Bush is "saved" and, therefore, a man of "faith and character," while Democratic leaders are "fallen" and subject to suspicion. It doesn’t come out of the mainstream media formulaic meat grinder in religious terms, but that’s the origin of the immunity that Bush and Cheney, to a lesser degree, enjoy.
In such a world of "saved" and "unsaved," performance doesn’t count, nor does psychological motivation or likely psychiatric impairment (as in the case of Bush’s very possible sociopathology.) All is forgiven a "saved" person who sins and fails, but no lapse is forgiven an "unsaved" person who excels.
As a result, Bush still speaks from a perch of media-bestowed credibility, when his psychiatric shortcomings, his likely criminal intent, his hunger for power, and his obvious psychological battle with his father, should have been generously explored in the press over the last few years.
Nothing illustrates this more than how quickly the mainstream press has forgotten how Bush summarily dismissed the findings of the "Iraq Study Committee," which was co-headed by two stalwarts of the D.C. status quo, including Bush the First’s consigliere, James Baker. Hey, James Baker was the guy that was the smooth front man for the theft of the 2000 presidency from Al Gore, and Bush still threw a bucket of scalding water in his face because he was doing Daddy’s bidding.
The American public and the world suffer dearly as a result of the refusal of the corporate press to explore Bush’s character beyond praising him with simplistic adjectives such as "decisive and bold."
Peggy Noonan, the speechwriter for Reagan who became his hagiographer, wrote a book of so-called non-fiction (which we consider fiction) on Ronald called "When Character Was King."
For Bush and Cheney, a book should be written entitled, "When Character Was Locked in the Closet and Never Discussed, Even Though It’s Killing Our Nation."
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/119
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