Staggers On
Thursday. I watched Bill Moyer's Frontline on the administration's selling of the Iraq war on television last night. I hadn't realized that the Knight-Ridder papers had reported it accurately, but otherwise I was pretty much aware of what was said. Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, all did terrible damage to their reputations as professional news organizations. I made a vow, thirty years ago, after hearing how the editors at Time had altered stories coming in from their reporters on the front line in Vietnam to follow the line they were receiving at the White House and Pentagon news conferences, to never buy or read that magazine again. And I haven't. I wore the uniform then and how they did their jobs made a difference.
How many people who's lives have been affected by the war in Iraq will do the same for these publications who even today seem to follow the administration's line? The idea of the The New York Times acting as a propaganda arm for the Bush administration is depressing. Still more depressing to hear it stated so concisely and clearly by Moyers on Frontline. It's posted on the Frontline Web Site. I think Glenn Greenwald hit exactly the right mark on this program in his Salon piece on the program.
A beautiful day today, by the way. What I would call a Seattle summer day, having grown up north of Seattle in my younger years: light wind breaker weather with a bright sun, lunch at a table in the middle of the Oakland City Center watching the women walk by, camera on the ground beside me. Too bad I had to spend so much of the day in the office, but no complaints. Life, as others have mentioned, is pretty good for an old fart living in Oakland, aching head or not.
Ah. And Xeney, living the blogger's life, is back having argued her case before the United States Supreme Court this week. Time staggers on.
|
