The Repubs will get away with whatever they are permitted to get away with

A note to the loyal opposition and the watch dog press:

So we now find out that Armstrong Williams was paid cash by the Dept of Education to push the No Child Left Behind. We have no idea how many more were involved, but we can be pretty sure that there are others. Oh my God! It's shocking!

This Administration has gotten away with everything and they will continue to get away with it until someone challenges them. The press tells the American people there is no evidence that Iraq had WMDs or were connected in any way to 9/11 and immediately, the White House is on the air on one of their propaganda wings, FOX and others, saying the exact opposite. They call the press a liar to their faces and the story is dropped. Look what happened to Dan Rather, they whisper.

...just like the Plame investigation, the 9/11 commission, the investigation into intelligence failures pre-Iraq. Just a little lip service, then nobody is held accountable and the whole matter goes down the memory hole. How in the hell did we end up here?

until the press regains its sanity and starts reporting responsibly and holding to account those in power at the very top.

Have you read this article yet?

The Bush Rule of Journalism
By Robert Parry
January 17, 2005


“Don’t take on the Bushes” is becoming an unwritten rule in American journalism. Reporters can make mistakes in covering other politicians and suffer little or no consequence, but a false step when doing a critical piece on the Bushes is a career killer.

The latest to learn this hard lesson are four producers at CBS, who demonstrated inadequate care in checking out memos purportedly written by George W. Bush’s commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. For this sloppiness, CBS fired the four, including Mary Mapes who helped break last year’s Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

A painful irony for the CBS producers was that the central points of the memos – that Bush had blown off a required flight physical and was getting favored treatment in the National Guard – were already known, and indeed, were confirmed by the commander’s secretary in a follow-up interview with CBS. But even honest mistakes are firing offenses when the Bushes are involved.

By contrast, journalists understand that they get a free shot at many other politicians who don’t have the protective infrastructure that surrounds the Bush family. Take for example the case of reporters for the New York Times and the Washington Post who misquoted Al Gore about his role in the Love Canal toxic waste clean-up.

<snip>

More: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/011705.html

that was the first article I read this morning. Good one!