… This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history. The many isolated streams of evidence about the Bush Administration’s torture system – and the direct responsibility of the Administration’s highest officials for this vast crime – have now converged into a mighty flood: undeniable, unignorable, pouring through the halls of Congress and media newsrooms, lashing at the walls of the White House itself. In the course of the past few days, a series of events has laid bare the stinking sepsis at the heart of the Bush Regime for all to see.

It began last Sunday with the launch of a remarkable series by McClatchy Newspapers, detailing the torture, brutality, injustice and murder that has riddled the Bush gulag from top to bottom. Then came fiery Senate hearings, in which long-somnolent legislators finally bestirred themselves to confront and denounce some of the torture system’s architects, including Dick Cheney pointman William Haynes III, who was left reeling, shuffling, dissembling – and bracing for perjury charges after his blatantly mendacious testimony.

Companion hearings in the House produced stunning confirmation of mass murder in the Bush gulag – a bare minimum of 27 killings, among the 108 known cases of death among Terror War captives. This evidence came from rock-solid Establishment figure Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. (Of course, as many captives have been and are being held in “secret prisons,” and an untold number of others have been hidden from the Red Cross, there is no way of knowing at this point how many prisoners have actually died or been murdered – or even how many prisoners there are in the gulag.)

And while the McClatchy series and Congressional hearings were going forward, a retired major general of the United States Army directly and openly accused the commander-in-chief of committing a war crime: authorizing ‘a systematic regime of torture.’” — Chris Floyd, “Torturegate: Truth but No Consequences,” Empire Burlesque

And yet … more silence. Floyd ends his piece: “It has indeed been a remarkable week in American politics. But I fear that the most remarkable thing about it will turn out to be that it had no lasting effect at all.”

So I conclude with a Q. to all my fellow conservatives who insist that the mainstream media are all/mostly liberal:

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So you’ve got 1 example of “conservative bias”? That’s it? And not to burst your bubble, but Liz Sidoti is hardly a conservative shill, which is probably why she’s a McCain fan.

From Captains Quarters;

http://tinyurl.com/6b9gx2

From the link.

“As we approach the midterms, the media will attempt to kneecap Republicans on one of the issues where they can point to real success: the economy.”

“Meet Liz Sidoti, who takes that approach in a release today from the AP, one that will no doubt be reprinted in thousands of client newspapers by tomorrow. Her piece, titled “GOP talk of vibrant economy rings hollow,” follows this tired and dishonest playbook to the letter:”

“Interesting, then, that she chooses to lead with such a distorted sense of the economy in the first five paragraphs of her piece. If Sidoti’s job is to report the news, then why doesn’t she do so until halfway down the piece, and why did the AP headline writer create such a misleading banner for the story?”

Try again Steve.

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NJLawyer: Yes, they do. Journalists are the people whose job it is to hold public servants accountable. They ask questions of people most of us can’t get access to.

It’s imperative they do that job well, and that they do it fairly. If I believed for a minute there actually was a pervasive liberal bias, I’d be against it. I just don’t think there is.

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“But that they do (or they ought to) represent the interests of the public against men in political power is not debatable:”

I don’t think it’s debatable that they ought to. I think it’s debatable that they do. They mostly represent the interests of their agenda against men in political power who happen to have an R after their name. If there’s a D, not so much.

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Frank: Not in the sense that Congress “represents” the public, they don’t.

But that they do (or they ought to) represent the interests of the public against men in political power is not debatable:

[F]reedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.
~ Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~ US Constitution, Amendment I

… The affairs of the nation were there [in Parliament] deliberated and decided; what we were to do as a nation. But does not, though the name Parliament subsists, the parliamentary debate go on now, everywhere and at all times, in a far more comprehensive way, out of Parliament altogether? Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact — very momentous to us in these times. Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal everyday extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures. The requisite thing is, that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually there. Add only, that whatsoever power exists will have itself, by and by, organized; working secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions, it will never rest till it get to work free, unencumbered, visible to all. Democracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant.
~ Thomas Carlyle , On Heroes and Hero Worship (1841)

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
~ A. J. Liebling (1904 – 1963), American journalist

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http://tinyurl.com/bo5pk

or this

http://tinyurl.com/3b5zxv

The second one is kinda long, it’s a pdf. Scroll to page 12 and check out the findings of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 34% of journalists self identify as liberal, compared to 7% conservative. Contrast that to the public, where 20% say they’re liberal, and 33% identify as conservative.

And since you brought up Bush, 55% of the media surveyed say they are not critical enough of Bush. Only 8% belived they were too critical.

Yeah reporters are supposed to report fairly and accurately, but most don’t. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. And how are you going to reach your own conclusions about important issues, when you’re getting slanted info to pick from? Your view, like the reporting, would have an obvious tilt.

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Having lived in Chicago for a number of years, I thought the Tribune surprisingly conservative. (Chicago was really very liberal.) And then I moved to Nashville and got a free subscription to the paper. Trust me, there are liberal newspapers. I don’t even pick up an occasional copy off the newstand as I’ve done all my life (maybe twice in five years have I done that in Nashville); the paper’s bias is revolting and, yes, I mean revoltingly liberal.

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