by Lynnell Mickelsen

I agree with Barbara's post below. I've spent much of the last six years, asking the same questions: Where is the press? Why did they roll over and play patsy while Bush lied us into this disastrous war, looted the U.S. treasury by handing billions of our tax dollars to his cronies in the form of no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton and stripped away our core constitutional rights?

Yet instead of covering this stuff, much of the national press still acts like white-gloved mavens at the country club, lecturing Senator-elect James Webb on his lack of "civility" because he refused to treat the President with the same servility of the press corps.

And don't get me started on the absurdity of the press suddenly becoming so concerned with "civility." These same media blowhards happily feasted off more than a decade of right-wing bile----as long as Democrats or anyone on the left was the object of it all. Now that there's the beginning of a push-back, they have suddenly become extremely concerned about manners. Now that the Democrats are in charge of Congress, the media pundits suddenly discover the virtues of "bi-partisanship," which somehow escaped them when the Republicans were in charge. Bi-partisanship and "civility" are for Democrats only, it seems.

The bad news is corporate journalism has utterly failed this country during one of the darkest chapters of our history. The good news is nature abhors a vacuum. When the so-called mainstream media refused to do its job, millions of ordinary, "mainstream" citizens got on-line and started talking to each other, writing to each other, doing their own investigative reporting and forming on of the most interesting, lively political network I've ever seen.

The huge growth of the progressive blogosphere in the last five years is directly linked to the failures of the corporate media. Even if this media eventually wakes up and rediscovers journalism (I ain't holding my breath), millions of citizens have created something extraordinary.

For myself, I'll never go back to the "good" old days of waiting for the publishing heirs and their hired hands at the New York Times to let me know all the news that they feel is fit to print. Been there. Done that. And it ain't good enough for me any more.

On a related note, author, blogger and attorney, Glenn Greenwald, directly goes after Barbara's question on why the media has decided to play patsy, especially in regards to the horrendous treatment of Jose Padilla. Today, Greenwald looks at how the Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz blew off the treatment of Padilla in an on-line chat with readers.
Here's an excerpt, but honestly, go read the whole thing.

"When someone discusses the Padilla matter specifically -- or the general fact that the Bush administration imprisons people indefinitely, including U.S. citizens, with no charges and often in the most inhumane manner -- it is quite common to hear expressions of incredulity, genuine bafflement, over the fact that not only is our government engaging in such conduct, but that it is prompting so little public outcry. I'm rarely able to avoid talking about this issue without making that point -- why isn't this most patent violation of our country's core principles, whereby our fellow citizens are being imprisoned and tortured by our government with no charges, prompting genuine anger?

This is the reason why. Over the last five years, the media (with some notable and noble exceptions) essentially embraced the central premise of the Bush administration -- that in order for us to be protected, we must place our faith in the Leader and know that he is doing Good, because he wants to protect us.

He may err at times. He might even go a little too far or be a little zealous in what he does to make us safe. But there are Very, Very Bad People in the world who want to kill us -- Padilla is "accused of plotting a dirty-bomb attack"! -- and the Leader needs the power to get his hands dirty and take care of them. The last thing we should be concerned with is what the Leader does to them.

With those premises snugly in place, "journalists" like Kurtz have spent the last five years doing the opposite of what they were supposed to be doing -- rather than skeptically scrutinize the conduct and motives of the Leader, they became his most enthusiastic followers. The President's promises of protection from the Scary Terrorists Who Want to Kill You resonated most loudly among the frightened, coddled media elites like Kurtz, who were more than eager to fulfill their end of the bargain by assuming the core goodness and honesty of the Government and never questioning that basic premise.

For the media to have any worthwhile function at all, it needs to be the least trusting group in the country, not the most. Their principal function is to serve as an adversarial watchdog over those in power, informing Americans when the Government's claims and behavior are suspect. That's just Journalism 101. It is vital that, if anything, they err -- strongly -- on the side of excess skepticism. Placing blind faith and trust in the actions of political leaders is the antithesis of the journalistic ethos, but those are the attributes which have been driving most of the nation's most influential political journalists throughout the Bush Presidency.

As Walter Pincus' belated though still welcome Post article this week illustrates, the time of reckoning for journalists -- an examination of the indispensable and corrupt role they played in enabling what has happened over the last five years -- is rapidly approaching. Journalists and similar types are beginning to acknowledge the almost complete co-opting of the media by the Bush administration over the last five years. There is, in some journalistic circles, a burgeoning (and very well-earned) shame over the entirely voluntary transformation of the media into a subservient propaganda arm of the most extreme elements of the Bush agenda.

The Bush administration was able to invade Iraq, imprison and torture people (including U.S. citizens), and repeatedly and openly break the law not because the Howard Kurtz's of our country failed in their duty as journalists (although they did, profoundly). It goes beyond that. They affirmatively believed in those things -- and in many cases, still do -- every bit as much as the President and his government did, and they worked in harmonious concert with the administration to do as much, if not more, to enable it.

Why isn't there more of a controversy over the radicalism of the Bush movement? Ask Howard Kurtz. It's just some goggles and leg shackles for a Terrorist. What's there to discuss?"