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All the while, the original architects of this nail in our own coffin continue to wax authoritative on talk shows, freely touting their "successful war" in which they "stopped a genocide" -- knowing the statement will go unchallenged. And it does. Though the dots remain purposefully unconnected, history, karma and consequence prove that what happens in the Balkans doesn't stay in the Balkans. Witness Madrid, London, Netanya and, as the Commission found, even 9/11. As Copley wrote of Brock's Media Cleansing: "That there were genuine initial misunderstandings on the part of the world's media with regard to the Balkan situation is clear. But the fact that the media -- on whose judgments governments made policies -- allowed itself [sic] to be duped by propagandists, and that editors then refused to recant when their errors became obvious: there lies the essence of Brock's indictment....If Watergate was the modern starting point for agenda-based reporting, then the Balkan wars showed that, unchecked, the media could, without accountability, bring about the downfall of nations. And that Wasn't Even the Tough Question, Primadonna Bill |
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IN A 'PINCH': RETHINKING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
This was bound to happen. The premise behind the First Amendment as it applies to the press--that a vigilant watchdog is necessary, sufficient--indeed, possible--to protect against man's basest instincts--is tautologically flawed: The fox guarding the White House, if you will. Walter Lippmann, the 20th-century American columnist, wrote, "A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society." True in theory. True even in Lippmann's quaint mid-20th-century America, perhaps. But patently false in this postmodern era of the bubbas and the Pinches. When a free and great society is hijacked by a seditious bunch of dysfunctional, power-hungry malcontents and elitists, it will remain neither free nor great for long. When hijacked by them in the midst of asymmetric warfare, it will soon not remain at all. If President George W. Bush is serious about winning the War on Terror, he will aggressively pursue the enemy in our midst. Targeting and defeating the enemy in our midst is, by far, the more difficult task and will measure Bush's resolve and courage (and his independence from the MPRDC (mutual protection racket in DC)) more than any pretty speech, more even than 'staying the course.'
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COPYRIGHT MIA T 2006