>>>But members of the media did not accept those conclusions. "Because in a way it ended the story," Hunt said. "And a whole lot of people who didn't have the advantage of covering Watergate thought this is going to be my one and I don't want it to end prematurely."
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About the middle of the year the press realized the public was blaming them for their complicity in the smear campaign. They then appeared to decide that the way out was to turn up the heat on Clinton - because if he didn't get impeached, they would be proven to have pursued this sleazy biased story for no good reason at all. That is to say, they acted at the behest of their republican media owners (e.g. the establishment mouthpieces at Time-Warner), and in the interest of fat profits from scandal, no matter the cost to the nation.
The 'press responsibility' talking heads that are now on The Newshour and CNN have to explain to us full time these days how they are really doing the right thing. They seem pretty transparently lame, but I guess that's preferable to admitting they are a batch of 500K a year sold-out hairdos who will say anything that is put in front of them for money.
So anyway, they made common cause with Newt and Starr for a while, because the president going down solved all their problems too. Now that the whole impeachment thing is blowing up they are issuing a lot of sanctimonious tripe about how the electorate has sent an message and the republicans just didn't get it.
It became impossible not to report the popular opinion of all this in the dozen days or so before the election and you started to see a bit more skillful butt-covering from them around that time.
The press is extremely easy to manipulate, especially if the ownership agrees with the message you want put out. I think the only thing we disagree on here is whether all those millionaire TV reporters and producers and publishers are really wild eyed liberals or whether they like to protect those nice spots they have in Georgetown and Chevy Chase and Newport and Sausalito, using the power they have. I also wonder if playing golf with billionaires on a regular basis could affect your spin on things.
I wonder if taking grand jury evidence knowingly is a crime like disclosing it is. It would do my heart good to see one blond MSNBC coked-up anorexic witch (you know who you are) do thirty days.
I don't know about you-all, but for someone of my political background the establishment press is high on my list of usual suspects. The funny thing is they don't seem to make anyone happy, not the raw-meat right, the center, or the left, and I don't think that has anything to do with evenhandedness, as they would like to tell you. We can all smell the same skunk, it's just that we keep trying to throw it in the other guys tent :-) Maybe we ought to stop that, since that's how they get us.
Maybe this Internet thing is pretty revolutionary after all. Except for the part where it's legal to eavesdrop on us and read our mail and listen to internet phone conversations and go through our files, which alternatively could make you think of the Internet as a de facto revocation of most of the bill of rights.
Anyway, g'night.
Chaz |
