I am feeling more and more that the press is getting sick and tired of bending over for this administration. I have been following the editorials in many of the major newspapers for months now. It has always seemed to me that even when a paper criticises the administration they always feel a need to note something positive about their efforts. There has been such a fear of being dubbed the "liberal media", that no one wants to be overly critical. The fear of the liberal label has become so pervasive largely because of the popularity of the right-wing radio and the Faux News Channel, but also because nobody has defended themselves against the charge. However, I sense a thawing in the media, a shift of the glacial divides. I don't have a sense that the media will defend itself against the charge of liberalism, but i do have a feeling that they might start ignoring it altogether. That is, after all, the best way to deal with someone else's paranoid nonsense.
Here is an excerpt from a very interesting Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert from the New York Times.
"President Bush may truly believe, as he suggested at his press conference last week, that he is carrying out a mission that has been sanctioned by the divine. But he has in fact made the world less safe with his catastrophic decision to wage war in Iraq. At least 700 G.I.'s and thousands of innocent Iraqis, including many women and children, are dead. Untold numbers have been maimed and there is no end to the carnage in sight.Posted by Paul Hina at April 19, 2004 11:39 AMMeanwhile, instead of destroying the terrorists, our real enemies, we've energized them. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has become a rallying cry for Islamic militants. Qaeda-type terror is spreading, not receding. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.
Even as I write this, reporters from The Times and other news outlets are filing stories about marines dying in ambush and other acts of mayhem and anarchy across Iraq. This was not part of the plan. The administration and its apologists spread fantasies of a fresh dawn of freedom emerging in Iraq and spreading across the Arab world. Instead we are spilling the blood of innocents in a nightmare from which many thousands will never awaken."