As I was watching President Bush's latest news conference, I was again struck by the thought of how different the news climate and public mood would be if the mainstream media (MSM) were truly as unbiased as they pretend to be. If the MSM were indeed objective and animated by an investigative impulse and a nonpartisan, government-watchdog instinct, they might thoroughly cover and inquire into the following: -- Why Joe Wilson appears to have lied when he denied that his wife, Valerie Plame, recommended him to the CIA to investigate the claim that Saddam Hussein sought uranium yellowcake from Niger, manifestly unqualified though he was. They might also examine Wilson's bragging about debunking certain forged documents on his trip that were not even discovered until eight months later. -- Senator Durbin's unconscionable likening of America's treatment of terrorist detainees to the treatment of prisoners by Pol Pot, the Nazi regime and the Soviet Gulags. -- Why one of its own standard bearers, the vaunted New York Times, sat on the surveillance "scandal" story until the week Congress was debating reauthorization of the Patriot Act. -- Where Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid gets off demanding an independent investigation about this NSA surveillance -- a practice that essentially began under President Clinton and about which Reid and his colleagues were privy to a dozen briefings. -- How Democratic leaders have continually accused President Bush of lying to get us into war when they had access to the same WMD intelligence as President Bush and voted to authorize him to attack Iraq. -- Why only a handful of Democrat senators availed themselves of their access to certain detailed reports on Iraqi WMD. -- Why Democratic leaders claim their plainly unconditional authorization to attack Iraq was based on further conditions. -- Upon what evidence the Democrats base their slanderous allegation that the Bush administration, as a matter of policy, engages in the systematic torture of terrorist detainees. -- How Democratic leaders could justify their irresponsible call for a specific withdrawal timetable for Iraq without playing into the terrorists' hands. -- Why most of those Democrats, when Republicans called their bluff, were afraid to back up their destructive rhetoric with their vote. -- The Democrats' conspicuous inability or unwillingness to offer a single alternative plan for Iraq, though they ceaselessly condemn President Bush's policies on it. -- Why senators who voted for the Patriot Act are now refusing to reauthorize it despite the lack of a credible case that the administration has abused its authority or compromised civil liberties. -- How Democrat Senators can complain about the government's failure to connect the dots concerning the terrorists' 9/11 plot and at the same time take action that will virtually guaranty our inability to connect future dots. Continued... |