The key ingredient in making the Bush administration so corrupt: a docile media

[Bucky]

After 9-11 the press pretty much rolled over and played dead for this administration. Sure, they were mostly corrupt before then. In fact, they were suffering from the usual array of first year overconfident fuckups that every new White House goes thru. But they were paying a price in popularity up thru September 10th and would have probably done some mid course correction and quit thinking they were God's gift to Halliburton. They would have been just a little bit more than average corrupt administration: Grant-level or Reagan-level wickedness.

Instead they went fully Harding because for every abuse, for every fuck up from ignoring the Anthrax and yawning past Tora Bora until Katrina, there was hardly a peep from the press. No one pressed the issue. Everyone kissed their asses and sucked down their words, or they didn't get on television. Having gotten away with progressively evil shenanigans, Rove and the Bushlettes just kept getting more and more brazen in their disregard; they quit caring about what the world thought or what the public would think about their deeds. They knew their deeds would go uninvestigated.

No one ever called them on their growing hubris and arrogance, and so by the time the public could no longer ignore the cost in our blood and treasure of keeping Bush on the public payroll and the press finally got around to talking about it with any focus, the Bushies were in full Harding-level, full on Nixon-caliber abuse of the Executive branch.

It's nice to see them finally getting slapped around. It's nice to see that there's consequences for letting their absolute power corrupt them absolutely. But at the same time, let's remember the costs. Had the Bushies cared more about their public image, they might have responded to Katrina faster. Fewer people would have died. They might have had to face the VA hospital neglect a year sooner, and the quality of care of hundreds of wounded vets would have improved dramatically. They might have been forced, however reluctantly, to deal with the realities and limitations on the ground in Iraq and been forced by public pressure to wind down the occupation two years earlier. They certainly could have been shamed into talking to Iran. If only the press had acted like it's supposed to. If only people whose job it was had asked the tough questions and kept on asking till they got the answers.

If only...

Less so than the administration, but still to a large degree, the deaths and the dirty deals and the delays in dealing with environmental degradation are due to the sloth and inattention of the fourth estate. The lapdog press didn't make Bush corrupt, but they ignored the inevitable slide into greater corruption that always, always comes when men with power are free to work behind closed doors. The function of the First Amendment isn't there to ensure that Mickey Mouse and Westinghouse can turn a tidy profit. It's there to make sure those doors can be forced open as often as possible. It's there to make the Karl Roves of the universe fear public exposure. And in that duty, our mainstream media failed all too completely.

[dysfunctional press]

1. i blame the media for EVERYTHING that has happened during the cheney mis-administration...

they are supposed to be the "watchdogs of democracy", not the lapdog enablers and cheerleaders of evil.
they all KNEW what was going on, and not only looked the other way, but encouraged the country to look the other way too. if this were a perfect and just world, every fawning "reporter" would be put before the same firing squads as every corrupt traitor in the cheney mis-administration.

[porphyrian]

2. A sycophantic corporate media with no accountability. - n/t

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[Justice]

4. More than docile - an enabling media

[slowry]

6. Yeah.

They not only failed (and continue to fail) to confront these criminals, but they constantly distract people with useless shit.

Useless fucking shit.

Fuck.

[Jester_11218]

5. Not dicile, complicit

I have a challenge to all the media...I can prove in a court of law that they are not news organizations. They are coordinated information control conduits. One hour is all I need. Keep an eye on my site for my presentation schedule. If you ever see it you will understand right away and you will never see the media the same again!

Don't fall for the bias argument. The fact is that every news organization reports the same information and omits the same information. The bias game is simply a distraction.

The US corporate media is our worst enemy and we sould treat them as such!

[Cha]

7. Not only "docile"..the corporatemediawhores

are complicit and should be indicted right along with the neoconshits.

Where's the fucking Outrage from the MEDIA?

[Jonathan50]

8. It's worse than that...

It was the MSM who put Bush in the White House in the first place.

The total blackout on Bush's record in the Air National Guard, his failed business dealings, the stalled SEC investigation, his changed driver's license and expunged record and so on and so on.

The constant lies and carping on Gore, the Love Canal story, the "invented the internet" story, the "love story" story and on and on...

[leftofthedial]

9. not "docile"

complicit.