Quote of the Day

I think that in the absence of a responsible national media, the blogs play an important role in trying to shed light on various issues, including the bona fides of so-called White House correspondents as well as tackling questions overlooked or ignored by the national journalists. I also believe that the nature of the profession has changed to the detriment of good investigative journalism. No longer is there a quest for the truth so much as there is this apparent need to present both sides of an issue even if one is nothing but lies and distortions. Giving the same value to fiction as to fact in the interest of so-called fairness is to mislead the American people and the press has become party to that.
- Ambassador Joseph Wilson

And that is another serious problem we have in this country. He's absolutely right, in that most mainstream media feels compelled to present both sides of an issue on a comparable basis, even if one side is totally full of shit. We see it time and again, most recently in the social security debate. Every leading economic institution has said Bush's plan is a bad idea, but the news media is acting like Bush's plan is just a different point of view. It's not. It's bullshit, and the media needs to say "everyone thinks this is bullshit".

Just as a reminder of who Joe Wilson is, he's the diplomat that dared to criticize the administration's foreign policy, resulting in somebody in the administration leaking his wife's covert CIA identity to Robert Novack, who then published it. That was a violation of federal law. For a really eye opening account of the nature of D.C. politics, read his book The Politics of Truth.

Wilson's real "crime" was that he criticized Bush for saying that Iraq was attempting to obtain yellow cake uranium from Niger in the state of the union address. Of course that was one of the justifications for the war. Of course it was based on a forged document. Of course the CIA had submitted memos to the White House stating that the information was unreliable and should not be used. Of course Bush used it anyway, and it was only months later that the White House suddenly "found" the CIA memos and admitted they should not have used that information in the state of the union address.

By then, they had already harshly criticized Joe Wilson, and leaked his CIA agent wife's (Valerie Plame) identity to the media. They just wanted to punish him for speaking the truth and exposing yet more Bush Co. lies. Joe Wilson has a lot of integrity for standing up to the liars.

If you ever wonder why the people in this nation voted for Bush, or are not demanding his resignation, one of the biggest reasons is the news media's insistance in protraying horrible crimes as nothing other than a different point of view. Woodward and Burnstein must be appalled.