Journalism Glance
Journalists like Evan Thomas now admit the Clinton scandals were bogus. When will they admit they played along?
Prodded by recent events -- including publication of "The Clinton Tapes," historian Taylor Branch's fascinating account of his contemporaneous private conversations with President Bill Clinton; the unwholesome reappearance of healthcare reform nemesis Betsy McCaughey; and perhaps even the death of retired New York Times Op-Ed columnist William Safire -- certain media myth-makers of the Clinton era have suddenly uttered startling acknowledgments and even a grudging confession or two.
Those are the Liberal Media's sources: Charles Krauthammer's column on Iran, Newt Gingrich's Twitter feed, and the latest flagrantly fear-mongering, irresponsible, Saddam's-shopping-for-yellowcake piece from The New York Times' new Judy Miller/Michael Gordon team, causing that paper to reprise its 2002 role in leading the beating of war drums (Gregory also quoted from Peggy Noonan, Tom Friedman and John McCain). And on every topic, Gregory's questions to Obama aide Susan Rice were grounded -- as Gregory's questions typically are -- in neoconservative dogma and sounded like they were lifted from the pages of The Weekly Standard...
Of the seventeen journalists killed because of their work since 2000, according to the CPJ, only one has resulted in a conviction (in Igor Domnikov's case), and even that was viewed as incomplete because the architects of the murder were not brought to trial.
But this is not merely a story of weakness. It is a story of resilience. For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers.
In a new post on the official White House blog, an administration official specifically names Fox News for lying about the administration's push to bring the Olympics to Chicago.
In a story about a group of elementary school kids who sang the praises of President Barack Obama for a Black History Month event, Fox News appears to have removed key information regarding the fallout triggered by intense right-wing media coverage.
It has a familiar ring: “Investigators are looking for about a dozen more people in connection with a wide-ranging terror investigation that has already netted arrests in Colorado and New York City..."
