Saturday, May 31, 2008

McClellan and the Media 'Enablers'

By Jeff Cohen
May 31, 2008

No sooner had Bush’s ex-press secretary (now author) Scott McClellan accused President Bush and his other former collaborators of misleading our country into Iraq than the squeals of protest turned into a mighty roar.

I’m not talking about the vitriol directed at him by former White House colleagues like Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer. I’m talking about McClellan’s other erstwhile war collaborators: the movers and shakers in corporate media.

Read on.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the article that points out (a little too softly for me) the enormous part that today's so-called media stars played in making this war happen. Without their constant beating on the drums of war, their refusing to interview antiwar guests and hourly butt-kissing of the Bush regime and their neocon leaders, the WorldBank bosses, a more sane outcome other than war might have been the result. It was so obvious that the media wanted this war that I would watch in amazement as the rural American flag wavers believed every lying word they spoke and happily sent their sons off to die in a war to make the rich even richer and more powerful. Even supposedly propaganda-free C-Span stopped having ANY dissentling voices on period!

No wonder Brian Lamb quit taking part in the Washington Journal where callers questioned his integrity in this matter. So many respected news reporters became willing whores during these past eight years and now their are trying to clean the filth and stink up that covers them as a result of their actions.

People like Tim Russert, Charlie Gibson, Nora O'Donnell, Maureen Dowd, Andrea (I'm married to Greenspan and only care about money) Mitchell, Wolf (I represent Israel) Blitzer and the like sold their souls to the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld, Neocon devil and I am sure that each of them has been greatly rewarded with stock in companies that profit from this war.

Chris Matthews was one of the biggest offenders, sucking up to the Bush regime until his nose was brown but who has now changed his tune and tries to make us believe that he was a critic of the war all along even before McClellan's book.

These media people need to be made aware that we have not forgotten how they failed to report the huge antiwar rallies in many cities, making it appear that the country was totally behind the plan to go to war in Iraq.

I have been amazed to see and hear the number of supposedly honest and patriotic people like (the racist) Pat Buchanen openly state that people in positions like McClellan's should NEVER tell the truth when their bosses are committing crimes. He and others like the new Press Secretary actually advocate that people who are close to the President should lie and cover up to protect him.

Each of those newscasters should lose their jobs but of course they will not because they did what the boss wanted them to do. They do need to know just how far down they have fallen in our opinions of them though. I suggest that MoveOn or some other activist groups start one of those petition drives for each of the offending newscasters and let millions of us sign to show them how many American people hold their actions and the actions of their producers and their station owners during the build up to the war to be despicable! I think they are still deluding themselves that we respect them and have not seen through their duplicity and outright guilt.

Anonymous said...

Funny.

The Bu$h WH and the rightwing villified Peter Jennings and ABC News in the run-up to Bu$h'$ War of Choice on Iraq. The Bu$h/Cheney administration and its propaganda machine were apoplectic, accusing Jennings of being un-American, unfair, biased, blah blah blah because he didn't kowtow to them.

Brent Bozell and his outfit thought that CBS and NBC were less biased against the war -- but had very harsh words about ABC News because ABC, in their judgment, did not give proper coverage to the war propaganda machine.

Anonymous said...

One other thing...The Media has its faults (including independent media!), but all this yakking about McClellan's book is playing right into the hands of the Bu$heviks and its manipulators.

True to form, the Rove message manipulation machine is laughing until their sides split -- all you "blame the media types" are taking the heat off of the warmongers and placing the bulk of the blame on the media. In the minds of the American people, it'll soon ALL become the fault of THE MEDIA.

Just as this book planned to do.

Anonymous said...

I don't think all the focus on this book and the media criminal takes the focus off Bush etc, it properly identifies and exposes another significant accomplice in this crime.

The major media groups in this nation are part and parcel of the Military Industrial Complex, they are its willful propaganda arm. They all knew exactly what they were doing, they all understand their role as enablers and defenders of entrenched power and they are all equally responsible and guilty for the mountains of death this war has created.

The anchors, reporters, editors, executives and management all belong in the dock with Bush etc at the war crimes trials.

Anonymous said...

Baleful regrets will do nothing to repair the damage done by this administration and its corporate allies. Iraq is decimated, its population shattered with quite possibly a million dead, and millions more on the move. In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the rest of the world listened to the dissenting opinions of people like Scott Ritter with great interest, while the American public danced to an elaborately orchestrated drumbeat. War supporters high on the Pax Americana must today see that their willful delusion has produced another casualty - the American economy. Media bigwigs, if so inclined, might be able to redeem themselves by revealing the underbelly of the other big lie – that the Bush administration is a legitimate power. (Does anyone still remember Florida’s hanging chads?) They could also highlight the fact that in eight short years this tightly-knit cabal of war-profiteers has jettisoned the American body politic back to the dark ages. That these usurpers haven’t been thrown out of office speaks to the corroded state of American democracy.

francis Collier said...

Don't be fooled. Mclellan, Feith, Tenant have all written books that seem to reveal inside information. This is really an attempt to shape history and perhaps sway public opinion to avoid possible prosecution of Bush et al. They are still on the same side. Nothing has changed. There is nothing in these books that we don't already know. Bush was not just well meaning but mistaken. Don't loose sight of this. Their acts were a crime against your country and you have been diminished by their actions.