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let the next british invasion be the press

i admit it-- the ease of the alito confirmation was disheartening. i took a little break from politics, downloaded a bunch of justice league unlimited episodes. they're great there's a dark undercurrent of paranoia fostered by illegal actions by a covert govt. agency, just took my mind off of everything.

during my little break i thought about the clinton impeachment. it was over a lie about a blowjob. the lie came out in an investigation that began by looking into alleged financial improprieties during his days as governor and through several odd turns, and acquitals for clinton at every one, it all came down to the fact that monica doesn't swallow. i saw a great post recently comparing the coverage of clinton after the lewinsky revelations and the coverage of the illegal nsa spying revelations. it might not be too surprising that there was much more coverage of clinton and lewinsky. clinton was under such incredible scrutiny, more than any other president in my lifetime, except perhaps nixon, but i was three so he doesn't count. if the media had covered the iran-contra affair the way they did the ballad of the blue dress would reagan still be so beloved, would bush sr. have ever become president? inquiring minds want to know. somehow through it all, through all of the outrage, the calls for his resignation in the media clinton remained popular. no one would leave him alone with a niece or female dog but they were fine with his leadership.

where would we be now if the media covered bush with any credible degree of scrutiny? what if all the people against the moral relativism of letting even a small lie about sex go unpunished were as enflamed by lies about war, protecting our troops, illegal spying, illegal renditions, torture, tax cuts, the economy, social security, our security, medicaid, katrina, education, the budget......every few weeks a new revelation comes out in the media detailing the falsehoods in the lead up to war-- the foreign media. these stories seem to go nowhere in the domestic media. the excuse is that the people are not interested. i think this is false, otherwise bush's poll numbers wouldn't be where they are. think about it: despite the media saturation of the lewinsky affair clinton's numbers remained high, despite the anemic coverage of any one of bush's impeachable offenses, and the media parroting of his talking points bush's numbers remain low. even with the blatant falsehoods being bounced around cable news shows people have gleaned enough to know that bush is basically a failure as a president. if we can't have an actual liberal press can we at least have the foreign press as exchange students for a while?

via digby i found thess great articles from eric alterman here and here on the myth of the liberal media.

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