I watched "All The President's Men" this morning....

[marmar]

and the unraveling of all the lies and secrecy because of the bulldog persistence of Woodward & Bernstein......

Do you think there's a Woodward and Bernstein out there right now - at the Post, the Times or even a blogger - who's going to find the definitive smoking gun (there are several out there, it seems) that's going to bring this criminal enterprise of an administration down? Or is America just karmically f**ked?

[ShortnFiery]

1. WE have S. Hersh but without an truly independent M$M, he is mostly unheard. n/t

[marmar]

2. True....Sy Hersch is probably the best we've got. And Greg Palast, who has to go to Britain...

to get his stuff out to people.

[cassiepriam]

3. Those who speak the truth are ignored or silenced by the MSM. Also, the public could care less.

So it doesn't seem to matter how many W&Bs there are.

[ClintonTyree]

4. It doesn't appear so....

even if a blogger DID put the myriad Bush crimes into a coherent, linear package that everyone could follow and plainly see his impeachable offenses, who would report THAT? The corporate media has a monopoly on what a majority of Americans see and hear, if they choose not to report it, it never happened. That's how Bush became a viable candidate for President in the first place. If everyone had known and understood how inept and ignorant he was before the 2000 election he'd be managing a 7-11 in Dallas right now.

[Yavin4]

5. Today's Journalists Are More Likely To Go To A Cocktail Party with These People

rather than investigate them. We've become a culture built entirely on money, and journalists are just as much a part of that culture as you and I. They have mortgages, tuition bills for the kids, and retirement problems like all of us do. So, they're more than likely going to tailor their journalism to achieve their personal monetary goals rather than their principles.

This is the context that allowed Bush to be taken seriously as a candidate in the first place. Today's journalists work for huge media conglomerates, and they know that their corporate masters wanted Bush to win, so they tailored their coverage of Bush and Gore to effectuate that result.

[grasswire]

6. no

a deliberate plan was carried out to co-opt the Washington press corps and replace hard-nosed grizzled reporters with youngsters with good teeth and hair, and then to woo them with the notion that they could become part of Washington society's A list. Olde Washington society is extremely alluring, with membership in the Alfalfa press-political secret club and lunches in the heavenly rooms of the Cosmos Club. Whose young and pretty head wouldn't be turned?

Further, their professional organization, the White House Correspondents Association, was weakened when credentialing of news agencies was shifted from this peer group over to the White House press office. Think about it. The WH gets to decide who covers it. They can throw reporters out, dismiss their questions, etc.

If the professional organizations would exert some muscle and cover the back of those who might WISH to do investigative reporting, we might get somewhere. National Press Club, Society of Professional Journalists, Columbia Journalism Review, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Editor and Publisher Magazine, White House Correspondents Association and its broadcast corollary --- out of all those only E&P is raising hell about the way journos are treated.

[Turbineguy]

9. I have observed that Washington DC

does something to people. It must be Power. Just being and working there. Pomposity and self-regard. It's hard to avoid. To be in the Capital of the most powerful nation on earth makes some think they are part of that power. It's as if you are connected. It's a fantasy of course. There is however a greater power. The country that surrounds Washington DC. Woodward and Bernstein must have understood the greater power. And they had the support of their Editor. That helps.

Maybe there's a connection to the fact that for so many years we have been bombarded with the power message from TV commercials. Toys that give boys the feeling they have power. Car that go from zero to 60 in less than 5 seconds. 438 horsepower SUV's. Most entertainment seems to be about the struggle for power.

I used to work with people who were obsessed with power. They were willing to struggle over the most insignificant things to obtain the smallest advantage. Then when they actually got some power, they did not know what to do with it. Fools. And sometimes dangerous ones.

[Democrats_win]

7. We needed them in 2004. Now, everyone knows bush is a crook and traitor

[aquart]

8. Woodstein DIDN'T find the "smoking gun."

The hearings did. When Butterfield said, "I was hoping you wouldn't ask about that."

Frankly, with BushCo we have thousands of smoking guns. What we do not have, yet, is the final straw.

[CTyankee]

13. I've been hoping for that "Butterfield moment" to happen with our congressional

hearings of late. Eventually, with enough hearings and enough people testifying under oath, it will happen, I am convinced. You can't hold in these dirty secrets forever. Somebody is gonna break the silence. Hopefully, someone in the media will publicize it.

[Parisle]

10. This thread is getting close to the truth.........

--- Corporate monopoly of the media,... press corps co-opted and defanged,... money as the root of,... everything. The crimes we're talking about are indeed this administration's crimes, alright,... but this administration is not the ultimate perpetrator of all that has been going on. They are just carrying out the gameplan of the corporatist supra-nation that seems to have made its move in the thirty-five years since vowing after Watergate, "We will never let the press beat us again."

--- "Follow the money" is still good advice, if you want to get to the bottom of it. But the situation is so far gone now that a grinning George Bush can stare blankly back at you and taunt, "Yeah,.... so what are you going to do about it?"

[MissWaverly]

12. Spiro Agnew started it all with his hatred of the media

If anyone does stand out, he's attacked, look at Dan Rather.

For anyone under forty, we really did have a vice president named spiro, he was forced
out of office due to charges against him, he did not plead guilty or innocent, but that
he did not contest the charges. He was vp under Nixon, and then Ford came in and became
prez 3 months later.

[Postman]

11. Carl Bernstein is more of a whisleblower than Woodward...

Bernstein has been openly critical of the current fascist regime in the WH but who would know about it?

And just look at how LOW Woodward has sunk since Watergate, actively poo-pooing the Valerie Plame scandal the entire time before it was known that HE was part of the investigation. What a friggin scumbag.