The New Era of Nattering Nabobs

The New Era of Nattering Nabobs

The Spiro
Agnew press assaults didn't work back then and they're not going to work
now. Not when you have the likes of John
F. Burns, Michael
Ware and Richard
Engel telling their stories. Not when you have Keith Olbermann smacking
down the Iraq
Queen for a Day right-wing radio crowd.

Peter Daou has a great post up about Bush's assault on the media right now.
It comes at a particularly opportune moment, as I will explain below.

Bush
Launches Massive Shock & Awe Offensive… Against U.S. Media:
As the Bush administration's Iraq fiasco spirals further out of control, a
new phase of the war has begun: an all-out assault on the American media for
simply reporting the news. The scope and audacity of this attack is breathtaking:
on cue, a bevy of administration officials and rightwing talking heads has
begun taking direct aim at the press, accusing reporters of fabricating the
Iraq crisis.

Media Matters chronicles the assault:

+ On March 19, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared
on CBS' Face the Nation and answered a question about the sagging support
for the Iraq war by noting that “there's a constant sort of perception,
if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad.”

+ During a March 20 press gaggle, White House press
secretary Scott McClellan discussed the speech Bush would give later that
day in Cleveland. McClellan said that the “dramatic images that people
see on the TV screens … are much easier to put into a news clip” and
told reporters that the president would address the “real progress being
made toward a democratic future.”

+ In his speech to the City Club of Cleveland, Bush
said he understood “how some Americans have had their confidence shaken.”
He continued: “Others look at the violence they see each night on their
television screens, and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the
prospects of success in Iraq.” Bush then talked about the town of Tal
Afar, which he described as a “concrete example of progress in Iraq that
most Americans do not see every day in their newspapers and on their television
screens.” … … …

How is it that a new nattering nabob class is born at around the
same time the Washington Post online division hires a right-wing hit man with
a dubious past,
just to placate the notion that Dan Froomkin, because he wants transparency
at the White House, is a liberal? Now look what's happened, as plagiarism charges
are hoisted on top of Ben's past racism, as calls from the right for him to
own up and resign
start multiplying.

Before the White House talks about the press being at fault for
the public's perception on Iraq, maybe they should remember that through the
entire 3 years of war we haven't seen one coffin on our television screens.
Stories of the maimed and traumatically distressed are absent. Over 17,000 have
been wounded, though Senator Warner said the actual number is between 25-30,000,
but we hardly hear their stories.

Couple it with the fact that Laura Ingraham and Melanie Morgan
have been escorted in and out of Iraq to pump up their numbers and further propagandize
the good news on right-wing radio, and what you've got is a media assault just
as Daou explains.

The other thing that's happened this week is President Bush quit
referring to Iraq as a war. On the 3 year anniversary he wouldn't even say the
word WAR. So, if we're not at war, what is it? Well, if we won the war and we're
no longer at war, we must be back to an occupation. Wonder how that reframing
is going to fly?

What we're seeing throughout the media, using the Washington Post
online as an example, is the Foxification of the media, where everyone seems
to be trying to replicate O'Reilly. Facts not so much. With newspapers and broadcast
journalism in a fight for funds, the bottom line becomes how many eyes you can
get on your page, not what the page provides. After all, advertisers pay for
eyes, not quality journalism. The example of the Washington Post, from Deborah
Howell to Jim Brady to Ben shows the selling out of an industry that was once
meant to keep our democracy thriving. Instead, our vaunted institutions have
sold out for access and cash.

The only truth telling provided right now is in the progressive
blogosphere, so we're the target these days, as our adversaries try to marginalize
us all. But again, the American people agree with us on the most critical issue
of the day, Iraq. We are the majority today.