How Obama Became the Curator of the Bush Legacy

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Tomgram-Mike-Davis-How-O-by-Tom-Engelhardt-110913-412.html

If I hear one more radio or TV journalist or pundit tell me what Mitt Romney must do, I think I'll scream. Election 2012 is still 14 months away and yet the nattering commentators, the Iowa straw poll -- we were told it was meaningless and to prove it 800 reporters showed up from a downsizing media -- the first "debates," the instant rise and fall of possible candidates (and the ignoring of others) have already been part of the scenery for months. If the job of journalists is now to tell us what Mitt Romney or any other candidate must do, then we, the viewers or listeners or readers, essentially become millions of mute political advisors in an endless campaign.

I mean what do I think Mitt Romney must do, now that what's-his-name is on the rise and Michele Bachman's advisors are jumping ship like so many proverbial rats, and what about that crowd in the Ronald Reagan library cheering Rick Perry's Texas execution record, or the idea of social security as a Ponzi scheme, and -- sorry to harp on it -- but really what should Mitt do about the Tea Party, or evolution, or Obama-rama-care? Or really, at this point, who cares?

And don't think you can find relief by visiting oppositional websites online. They're already geared up 24/7 to feed off mainstream "reporting," while discussing what Mitt and his pals have done -- their gaffes, stupidities, idiocies, etc. -- presumably for the next 14 months. And here's the shameful thing: they're not even making real money off it!

For the mainstream media, especially TV, it's another matter. In fact, it's one of the great, unmentioned conflict-of-interest stories of our time. If, in a different context, someone was selling you on the importance of a phenomenon and at the same time directly benefiting from it, that would be considered a self-evident conflict of interest. For campaign 2012, TV alone is likely to have close to $3 billion in ad money dropped into its electronic lap -- especially if news shows can drum up attention for the eternal election season as the political event of a lifetime. So whenever those pundits go on about Mitt and his musts, they are functionally shilling for their owners' bottom lines, though no one in our world bothers to say so.

More at the link --