Patching Things Up

[MelissaB]

Patching Things Up

The press gets a second chance on the CIA leak case

by Sydney H. Schanberg
November 1st, 2005 10:58 AM

The foundations of the Bush White House, now revealed as never before by the desperation and foolishness of the CIA leak and its cover-up, had always been built and regularly shored up with the shaky materials of imagery and carnival barker salesmanship. Now, as its mirrors and magic tricks are exposed one by one, its flailing propaganda machine tries to sell the press and public the line that the criminal charges are piddling and should not be taken seriously. The charges are very serious—because they grow out of a bloody war we are suffering through that was not necessary.

The core of the CIA leak case is the Iraq war. As the press goes about unraveling it, none of us should lose sight of whence it sprung. The war is why the case is important.

The special prosecutor must proceed, appropriately, to deal with the crimes he has cited so far in the case—perjury, obstruction, false witness. But the press has a different job ahead: to probe deeper into and explain how these charged felonies were the direct offspring of the Bush administration's attempt to cover up falsehoods and distortions it told the American public and Congress to scare them into supporting the war. The press's obligation to the public now is to aggressively revisit and brush the cobwebs from those lies, while people are paying better attention than they did during President Bush's selling of the war.

Some in the press didn't confront the lies the first time around. Some were—let's be honest—afraid to take on the White House, unwilling to assume the adversary position. But others did their jobs. When one goes back for a dig into the original coverage, yes, there are too many weed fields of reportorial stenography, but there are also strong examples of solid journalism bearing ample, detailed evidence that the White House was hoodwinking the public.

More: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0544,schanberg,69551,6.html

[Delphinus]

1. Excellent!

Thank you for finding it!

These two paragraphs hold some wonderful points:

Their worst act, not listed in the penal code, was to betray the public. At his press conference last week, the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, said: "You're asking, do these charges vindicate a serious breach of the public trust? Absolutely."

And as for those reporters back in 2003 who took stenography from the storytellers and failed to examine the contrary evidence that was on the record, they too betrayed the public trust.