Surprise, Surprise: Bush Lied by Robert Parry

[Joanne98]

But the more troubling point is that there has been little improvement in the Washington political/media structure that failed to call Bush out on his lies in a timely fashion.

In Iraq alone, the consequences for that dereliction of duty include more than 4,000 U.S. dead along with hundreds of thousands of slain Iraqis and possibly trillions of taxpayer dollars wasted.

Though Bush’s White House and his Republican allies may stand out as the principal villains in this tragic story, a large share of the blame also must fall on accommodating Democrats and careerists in the Washington press corps. They protected their political flanks and their nice salaries by playing along.

Indeed, McClellan calls the U.S. news media “complicit enablers” in the White House’s “carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval” for invading Iraq, according to a New York Times preview of McClellan’s book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.

It’s significant, too, that McClellan’s title cites “Washington’s Culture of Deception” because the problem is truly broader than just Bush and his inner circle. The “culture of deception” both preceded and will surely outlast the current residents in the White House.

During the 1980s, when I was an investigative reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek, I would sometimes ask myself what was the duty of an American journalist when you reached the conclusion that the U.S. government was lying pervasively – not just once in a while, but routinely.

That was a problem I encountered when covering the neoconservatives who entered the higher realms of government under Ronald Reagan. At the time, the neocons were pushing a concept called “perception management,” a domestic covert intelligence program for manipulating how Americans perceived dangers abroad.

The neocon testing ground was Central America and the Caribbean where minor threats like leftist regimes in Nicaragua and Grenada were exaggerated into grave dangers facing the United States. To accomplish these distortions required whipping the Washington press corps into line.

Journalists who resisted found their careers in jeopardy from a combination of right-wing attack groups and cowardly news executives who valued their social relationships and government contacts more than their journalistic responsibilities.

There was virtually no career danger – and indeed lucrative rewards – for collaborating with the Reagan administration’s powers-that-be. So, over the years, this corrupt way of doing business – pandering to well-connected Republicans – became Washington’s way of life.

In my writings – dating back to my first book Fooling America in 1992 through my last one Neck Deep (written with my sons, Sam and Nat) in 2007 – I have tried to explain how this process gradually allowed propaganda to substitute for reality and helped bring the nation to its current fix.

Iraq Disaster

However, even the Iraq disaster – in which major news organizations disgraced themselves, from the New York Times to the Washington Post to network and cable TV news – has done little to change matters.

Except in a few rare cases – like Judith Miller leaving the New York Times – journalists responsible for spreading Bush’s disinformation have avoided significant punishment.

For instance, the Washington Post’s editorial section, which swallowed neocon propaganda whole, has undergone almost no change. Editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt remains in place, along with pro-invasion columnists, such as Charles Krauthammer, David Ignatius and Richard Cohen.

While news executives have lost careers over relatively minor offenses, like not catching Jayson Blair’s fabrications regarding a Washington-area sniper mystery, there has been no purge following the far more monumental falsehoods that led to the Iraq War.

It also wasn’t hard to figure out that President Bush was a brazen liar.

Continued>>>>
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/052808.html

[FloridaJudy]

1. And in other late breaking news:

Scientists have determined that the Pacific ocean is wet.

[many a good man]

2. We are a nation of cowards thanks to the right wing

Our democratic experiment was allowed to proceed ONLY because TPTB realized the masses could be whipped up into a hysteria over the slightest things and become persuaded to vote against their own and mankind's best interests.

This is nothing new. Look at American history. Hysteria over slave revolts. Immigration. Red Menace. Terrism. We must stop this never ending cycle or humanity is doomed.

[KoKo]

3. The RW is already trying to say Scotty is Crazy....

"He's not the same person he was"..."his allegations are just crazy"..."no one had any idea he felt this way and why didn't he just speak up"...."he didn't sit in on any meetings in the lead up to Iraq, so how can he make these allegations...it just sounds crazy" .....

These comments are from Bush spokespersons appearing on CNN and MSNBC last night and this morning. The Mighty RW Echo Chamber is working hard to put the meme out: "There's something wrong with Scott McClellan...because what he says is "just crazy."