progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital
The biggest sickness in our politics is this top down, elitist mentality in which people are fed a diet of information, entertainment, products and ideas that are focus grouped, soulless and commercial — and which are then filtered through a ruling media class that is so psychologically cramped, so emotionally sterile, so stuck in their own feedback loop that they are presenting a totally distorted version of reality. It’s important that we look elsewhere for wisdom and leadership.
Personally I fear that DC is turning into an aristocratic nest. Napolean’s palace. A Washington Versailles consisting of those in power and the media corporations they’re in bed with. The reason that the fourth estate is not currently functioning in a meaningful sense is that it’s no longer separate from the government it is supposed to report on. And by government I don’t mean the Executive branch per se, I mean this separate socio-politic-economic class they’ve created. If the military-industrial complex was the open secret of the 1960’s, the White House-media-corporate elite is the open secret of 2005.
Take this soiree described in today’s White House Briefing:
About 50 members of the White House press corps accepted President Bush’s invitation last night to come over to his house in Crawford, eat his food, drink his booze, hang around the pool and schmooze with him — while promising not to tell anyone what he said afterward.
It’s something of a Bush tradition, a way of saying thank you to journalists for whom an extended stay in the Crawford area is anything but a vacation.
And in spite of all the recent press demands for senior administration officials to stay on the record more often, the press corps can’t resist an offer of face time with the president, pretty much no matter what the conditions.
Later in the post Froomkin mentions that Karl Rove has also been having off-the-record dinners with reporters. Speaking of which let’s not forget that members of the Washington Post and Time magazine had damaging information on Karl Rove, information that could have affected the outcome of the last election, but decided to keep this information to themselves.
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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.
95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
We're asking you to put some of the money you plan to give Obama "in escrow" until he demonstrates progressive leadership on the issues we care about, like warrantless wiretapping. [Link]
The report notes that the administration has gone to “unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost” of the wars. [Link]
"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen said during his appearance at the National Press Club. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would." [Link]
It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration. [Link]
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be ans [Link]
It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. [Link]
BOULTON: There are those who would say look, lets take Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, and rendition and all those things and to them that is the complete opposite of freedom. BUSH: Of course, if you want to slander America. [Link]
In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.” [Link]
Democracy Now! Radio and TV News [Link]
Let's take a look at how the Los Angeles Times covered the new Senate Intelligence Committee report on the claims made as part of selling the Iraq war, and compare it to how the editorial page of the Washington Post, by which I mean Fred Hiatt, sees the e [Link]
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" an [Link]
Hertzberg's analysis is noteworthy because he appears to be able to allow several ideas to coexist in his head simultaneously, which quite an achievement these days. [Link]
That night, George Stephanopoulos, who was then a top aide to Mr. Clinton, declared that it was “mathematically impossible for Brown to get the nomination” — the start of a campaign to declare Mr. Clinton the presumed nominee, even as several other [Link]
If Obama is the nominee, Tonay said, McCain will be just fine with her. "In the end, I won't vote for Obama because I don't know who he is, and I don't trust him," she said. [Link]
Robert Reich, who went to Yale Law School with Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton and later served in the Clinton administration, called Hillary Clinton's attack on Obama "absurd,&q~ adding: "That carries guilt by association to a new level of absurdity. [Link]
Some speculate the Senator Clinton would want the spirit-killing Vice Presidency because she would be willing to wait for two terms so as to be the likely nominee in 2012. I believe that she could well contemplate this scenario. [Link]
A subsequent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that gas prices fell by 3 percent, meaning that only three fifths of the savings from reduced taxes was passed on to consumers. [Link]
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is filing a complaint with the IRS today challenging the conservative group Freedom's Watch status as a non-profit. [Link]
For Barbara, Hillary has become the screech on the blackboard. From First Lady to Lady Macbeth. [Link]
So what's changed? I asked Reich. "I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. [Link]
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