Handing Bush the Bully Pulpit

[Say_What]

<clips>

It is all well and good to celebrate the cautious baby steps being taken by Congress to reassert itself as a check and balance upon the executive-branch excesses of the monarchical Bush administration. When even Republicans, such as Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, are publicly admitting that the House and Senate failed during the first six years of the Bush interregnum to practice even minimal oversight with regard to the administration, there is perhaps a measure of hope for the Republic.

But that hope will not be realized if we wait for Congress to develop the spine it has been deprived of since the Watergate era. There must be an external check and balance upon the executive branch, and that will only happen if the media abandons the bended-knee position from which it has covered the Bush administration.

The willingness of most mainstream media outlets to continue to treat seriously the absurd and propagandistic claims of this president and his aides is at least as damaging to the discourse--and, by extension, to the American experiment--as the collapse of Congressional oversight. To allow the Administration and its supporters to suggest, at this late stage in the disaster that is the Iraq invasion and occupation, that challenges to the president's proposal to escalate the war are disrespectful of US troops serving in that country--or perhaps even threatening to them--is to perpetuate a lie that warps the national debate in a manner that ensures more Americans and Iraqis will be killed.

The President and his dwindling circle of supporters certainly have a right to make their pronouncements. But they do not have a right to expect that lies and spin will be swallowed by the media and then regurgitated into the living rooms of Americans.

Unfortunately, that is what happened Wednesday night, as a presidential address that should have been met with unbridled skepticism was instead treated as a meaningful statement regarding the future U.S. presence in Iraq. Yes, of course, there were more critical voices and questions than before the country went to war, but for the most part the Washington press corps was still trying to suggest that the emperor really was wearing clothes.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=156296

[indepat]

1. The willingness of most mainstream outlets to have given this administration a pass to its absurd

and propagandist claims is stupid and self-serving at best and near-treasonous at worst.