I recently moderated a panel of experts intent on informing their audience as to why we must withdraw from Iraq, much sooner than later. The word "immediately" found its way into most rationales.
Different than most of these anti-this-particular-war recipe for get-out was that it was made with both Democratic and Republican ingredients. Even more different than discussions that now lather the airwaves in blather, this one was fact heavy.
Facts not opinion. Reality not fabrication. Truth not lies. Dissemination of the evidence rather than the ignorance that talk radio/TV thrives on and which this administration has joyfully fused itself to. That the White House calls this truth ought to cause truth to sue the White House for irreparable damages.
Say like when a president stands up for a new port sell-out that he fully stands behind but first found out about it by reading that it had already been approved.
Or that the deal was fully vetted and there no problems, unless, of course, you consider it a problem that the U.S. Coast Guard raised concerns weeks ago that, because of U.S. intelligence gaps, it could not determine whether the UAE company, DP World, might support terrorist operations
Or when a federal study and our top general say that the military is stretched beyond their capabilities and a Secretary of Defense -- who admits he hadn't read the study -- says that's not true.
How about the dark-of-the-night at the administration's Department of Word-Mangling when WMD aren't found so the war rationale then becomes WMD-related. Or when Abramoff donations (sometimes known as bribes) are not found to be applicable to Democrats, the donations become Abramoff client-related.
The word "related" should get a kickback from this White House.
And just like that, the Mainstream Media accepts the spin as one side of the truth and has let the talk show mentality bastardize the facts in a political shakedown of obscene proportions. They've become unintended colleagues of snake oil salesman like Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh who poison the debate under the guise of truth-telling; using circuitous arguments that are an insult to anyone with a single brain cell; twisted logic so tortured that the Geneva Conventions would object. That it continues 24/7 is a sin against humanity. If there be a reason to believe there is no God, look at right wing talk radio.
Yet the Right has been able to place the fear of God so much into the fourth estate that the Mainstream Media has made a clear decision to make its way into the dark side allowing political balance to mean that lies must get equal space with the truth.
Under fear of being called biased by the biased Right, the LA Times gives the vicious David Horowitz space on the front page of their Sunday oped page. Right wing apologists like Max Boot and Jonah Goldberg spread propaganda on the Times daily opinion pages while condescending blowhards like Dennis Prager and David Gelernter got to spit out divisive rants under the pretense of speaking the word of God.
The bastion of liberal ink-think, the New York Times, releases the NSA spying story after a year of collusion with the White House, ONLY because one of the own writers would have exposed it in his new book which would have made them even look less credible then, say, allowing someone like Judy Miller to mask White House drive to war propaganda as news.
The Washington Post ombudsman distorts the Abramoff information while Saint Bob Woodward goes mute on the sins of the administration.
The Today Show brings on Bill O'Reilly to give us intellectual insight into the news.
CNN brings on Bob Bennett. Headline News, obviously forgetting the brilliant MSNBC Michael Savage experiment, brings on Glenn "Hate The 9-11 Families/Katrina Survivors Are Scumbags" Beck.
The supposed watchdogs for the public, the (excuse me while I retch) liberal media, except perhaps for NBC's David Gregory and absolute goddess, Helen Thomas, have let us down. The rest of the White House press corp sits back while Scott McClellan is allowed to stonewall that "There is a serious investigation going on so we can't comment further." If that's the truth, they'll never be able to comment on anything because everything this White House does needs serious investigation.
Every Sunday morning news talk show anchor poses RNC debunked talking points as if they're legitimate questions, and they're permitted to get them get away with it by mainstream anchors.
Even supposed Democratic wunderkind, Barack Obama, fell into the right wing talking point trap on a recent Meet The Press by intimating that, re: Abramoff scandal, "The problem of money in politics is bipartisan." Senator, it only serves the devil to say the devil's in us all. We've got to stop giving this Talkization of America credibility.
Instead of letting Tim Russert or Brit Hume or George Stephanopolous or God-forbid, even a Hannity, frame some RNC talking point in the context of an acceptable question and just responding it, the answer must begin with a complete dismissal of the question.
"Tim, Brit, George, Seanie, why would you take an already confirmed misrepresentation and hold it up as a legitimate question? Surely your crack research staff could have easily checked this out and found it to be wholly untrue long before you embarrassed yourself by asking it on your show. Next question."
Another words -- Dean, Perry, Biden, Obama, Shumer, Durbin, Gore, Clinton, everyone -- instead of just reacting, wasting time trying to defend some fiction that isn't worth valuable network time, you call a spade a spade right from the gitgo. Then, you can spend that freed up time selling America on what you can do for them, instead of letting the media sell America down the river.
If not, when we do the Judgement at Nuremberg redux, they'll have to build a defendant section just for the Goering wannabes.