The White House has the last laugh - Sidney Blumenthal

[TacticalPeek]

The White House has the last laugh

Bush's latest abuse of power fails to rouse the Washington media

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday April 1, 2004
The Guardian

snip

While she was putting a stiletto into Clarke, the background
briefing paper was shuffled by her press office to Fox News to
broadcast as Clarke testified. Republican members of the 9/11
commission waved the paper at him, and much time was taken
up by his explanation of how, as a staffer, he had been acting
properly, like a lawyer representing a client, and why his briefing
was not at odds with his information now.

This selective declassification signalled to professionals in
government that anything they said to reporters could be held
against them if they ever in the future contradicted the Bush line.
Yet not one news organisation tried to uphold the old rule by
threatening to reveal sources of off-the-record briefings unless
the White House reverted to the accepted convention that
makes informed journalism possible.

The Clarke episode is symptomatic of a systematic abuse of
power. Reality is raw and dangerous to report - better to laugh
along.


more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1183425,00.html

[xchrom]

1. the major media networks

are the tool of the statist regime.
welcome to the fourth reich.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. The image of those reporters laughing at the WMD joke...

is so emblematic of what has become of our free press. This piece is right-on, and frightening.