Recurring Visions

"I am seeing things, I know. I see a nation in abject poverty; I see chaos, death, despair. I see disease. I see crime. I see revolt. I see war. And I see someone, some Venezuelan or Cuban or even an American, stepping forward to intervene, to calm and charm the Haitian people: I see a peacemaker full of political guile. -- Bill Gnade, "Tragic Thoughts", January 13, 2010

In a recent interview with Bill Maher, actor and political activist Sean Penn had this to say regarding his humanitarian outreach program in Haiti:

Hugo Chavez, who, when I went to Venezuela, when I went to Haiti, because when I, starting up an NGO, how do I, an actor in Hollywood, order bulk narcotics?...But on a serious note, you know, this is where amputations, reamputations after gangrene set in – it was Venezuela, Cuba, were able – supplied us with those to be able to get them to hospitals. And then later when I – it wasn’t because the Americans weren’t, it was because I didn’t know how – It seemed I didn’t know the same people that I knew to be able to do it... The collaborative opportunity in Haiti, when you talk about Hugo Chavez, and some of these other people who are demonized, and you know, when some of these countries accuse us of an occupation -- where I believe this was strictly a humanitarian action one the part of the United States military, and an incredible one – I’m a little sympathetic. Because every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies. [bold mine, added for emphasis]

________________________

Sarah Palin Should Have Simply Said "No."

There is no time to read all the commentary about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's decision to leave her office on July 26. Clearly there is much to say about that decision; some people in fact have much to say about Gov. Palin's every move. Even after she leaves office an abundance of jokes, sarcasm, malice, and derision will be tossed her way. Members of the vituperative, vindictive set will not surrender her as easily as she has surrendered them.

Gov. Palin in the most objective sense was nearly unknown until August 29, 2008. On the day John McCain announced her as his running mate, the small-state-big-state governor was not only thrust into the limelight; her world was suddenly exposed to the glaring, and often leering and sneering, gaze of the media, the blogosphere, and the comedic and pundit classes. Any appeal to privacy; any suggestion that certain things were off-limits; all that fell away the moment she said "Yes" to John McCain.

She would have been better off saying no. That, at least to me, is what I read and hear between the lines. Had she rejected Mr. McCain's offer, the cameras would have focused elsewhere, the blogs -- some even funded by Democratic monies gathered in the lower-48 -- would have gone silent, and she could have completed (most likely) her term as governor.

Two things happened. One was that her critics, critics of all things Republican, understood that even after Sen. McCain's November loss she could and would use her experience as governor of Alaska as a springboard for higher office. And the second thing was that the governor had made -- even if only slightly -- Barack Obama look too much like the man he actually was: an inexperienced novice propped up by the media and the grand spectacle the Democratic Party created around him.

Thus, not only the Alaskan media and Democratic establishment but the entirety of the whole liberal class -- news, entertainment, and party leadership -- turned their guns her way. It wouldn't be an overstatement to describe her life since August 29, 2008 as one filled with harassment, even sexual harassment, and abuse. (Perhaps Sarah Palin has now destroyed what surely could have become a Democratic Party meme: that she only USED Alaska simply for her own inflated ambitions. Now, she has at least seized control of the narrative, which can only tick off her critics.)

I tried to pay attention at the beginning of Gov. Palin's rise to fame and infamy. I tried to follow the metaphors, if you recall, that were used to describe her. Of course, I only touched the tip of the veritable Alaskan iceberg of abusive metaphors that moved toward her destruction. She was reduced to an object, even a sex object, at which her detractors aimed their abuse: she was reduced to a target. Crude stereotypes abounded. They continue to abound.

Sarah Palin is not, nor was she ever, perfect. She may even be extremely imperfect. If I were to know her as a close friend; were I to know her deepest thoughts on life, politics, faith, beauty, I may discover that her imperfections are too great for me to tolerate. But there is no doubt, none whatsoever, that she was abused by people who should have known better. Her many imperfections do not merit hate and vitriol.† Or so I think.

In the end, Gov. Palin has made a choice I actually applaud -- barring her resignation is a flight from scandal -- for the simple reason that I think serving in the public sphere has become, in most instances, a very low calling. She may have "let down her base," as some have said, but my feeling has long been that most of the political classes in America -- especially the alleged intellectual and academic classes -- have long been rather debased. No doubt she has let them down. In that one fact, I think her recent actions are rather complimentary to her.


To dissent is patriotic.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

†My own critics may fault me here for hurling abuse toward Barack Obama. If that charge is hurled my way, I think I can defend myself rather ably.

Are Rumors Of Recession Mere Fabrications?

______________

In the past few weeks, I've caught myself saying, whenever I am pulled into a discussion about the economic "recession," that Americans "hear about recessions EVERY election cycle." I know that I am ill-equipped to descry the numbers buried in the convolutions of economic reportage, my technical understanding of the meaning of "recession" notwithstanding. But at least one seemingly qualified person thinks that "The 'Recession' Is A Media Myth."

What do you think?

I'd love to know.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Necessary Myth Mashing

A recently released study on media bias in news coverage during the first few months of the US presidential campaign season is enlightening. The study, produced by the Harvard-based Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and Project for Excellence in Journalism, is thorough and engaging (read the PDF here), even if it is an erudite statement of the obvious: there IS a left-wing, pro-Democrat bent in the media. Look at the study for yourself. It will dispel few myths.

But there is one myth it will dispel, namely, that Fox News is some blaring mouthpiece for all things Republican. Not so, says the study, especially when compared to other cable news programs, like CNN, which leans decidedly left. Here's the report's statement about Fox:

The programming studied on Fox News offered a somewhat more positive picture of Republicans and more negative one of Democrats compared with other media outlets. Fox News stories about a Republican candidate were most likely to be neutral (47%), with the remainder more positive than negative (32% vs. 21% negative). The bulk of that positive coverage went to Giuliani (44% positive), while McCain still suffered from unflattering coverage (20% positive vs. 35% negative).

When it came to Democratic candidates, the picture was more negative. Again, neutral stories had a slight edge (39%), followed by 37% negative and 24% positive. And, in marked contrast from the rest of the media, coverage of Obama was twice as negative as positive: 32% negative vs. 16% positive and 52% neutral.

But any sense here that the news channel was uniformly positive about Republicans or negative about Democrats is not manifest in the data.

Surely we can all be confident that left-wing claims that Fox News is really Faux News will cease. I mean, it is well-known that we more conservative folk have an implicit trust in our liberal friends' ability to base their arguments on sound facts and methodology.†

But perhaps some trenchant thinkers, like those found at the Daily Kos or the Huffington Post, will not read this study and hence will be spared much troubling apoplexy. Their ignorance is a merciful ignorance.

And, for fun, this screen shot from the report showing the balance between positive and negative commentary on talk radio, conservative and liberal:



Granted. I post this table merely to incite laughter. It's clear the samples were rather small. But I do love the 100% tallies in the liberal talk radio columns. That's pretty funny.

It's sad that two seconds after you read this, you will most likely return to a world driven by media that lie to themselves about themselves. Media bias? Who really cares?

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

†I have not read the full text nor have I analyzed the study's methodology. For now, I'll make an assumption that this study intends to be taken seriously and hence has not been done shoddily.

There Is No Bias:saiB oN sI erehT

George W. Bush is your worst enemy; we all know that W stands for Warmonger, and that hidden in his first name is a slightly twisted ogre. Bush the Menace.

Or so says Newsweek.

Shake your head to clear your eyes, if you must, as you look at Newsweek's newest cover: that is Bush the Bellicose glaring Middle-Eastward, eyes like warheads aimed at the Persian Prince of Peace.

One thing I am certain of is this: that in Iran, Newsweek's headline is not "The Hidden War with Iran." Instead, the Tehran edition is headlined thusly: "The Hidden -- and not so Hidden -- War with America." Wait. No. Scratch that. How foolish of me. Newsweek has it right: 'Tis Bush who has been boasting about his nation's great fate; about the absurdity of the Holocaust and the porcine Jews† who hold the earth enslaved by a mythology that fuels Zionism's many fires. 'Tis Bush who wants to usher in the New Age of the 12th Imam, a caliphate and an Eden somewhere between the Tigris-Euphrates and the edges of the earth. The four angels guarding the ancient gates of Eden are relieved of their weary duty; all through Persia run rivers of gold rhetoric, and there waters are Mahdi: peace is indeed rolling, like the thunder of nuclear detonation. And Bush shall lead us home: he is the Bush that burns with war and never leaves.

Alas, again, I am mistaken, even delirious. My first response to the Newsweek cover was utterly errant. It is not the crazed man to the left who is warring against you, me, the very foundations of Western thought. No, it is Bush. The man on the right. You know, the wrong man on the Right; the Christian Right, all broken and jumbled up, full of petty menace, and all very wrong.

Newsweek and MSNBC, allies under the same Great Peacock, can't expect us to divine -- without their journalistic help -- that Mr. Ahmadinejad, ever speaking in gracious and dulcet tones, is a man of peace with sober eyes and waiting smile.

Perhaps the 12th Imam is that man from Illinois, who has fallen from the sky. His name means "blessed."

Peace.

BG

†This is not to be construed as an anti-Semitic slur on my part. I aim to faithfully and sardonically report Mr. Ahmadinejad's attitude.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Two Annunciations: MSNBC Supports Barack Hussein Obama, And He Is Not Black (or so says someone)

In a matter of minutes from now (30 minutes), Barack Hussein Obama, the handsome and well-spoken senator from Illinois, shall officially announce his candidacy for President of the United States. Assisting him in this proclamation, and no doubt a supporter of his candidacy, is MSNBC, the cable network featuring such notable political wisemen as Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Keith Olbermann. My saying that MSNBC is assisting him is due entirely to the fact that MSNBC is hyping its "live coverage" of Mr. Obama's annunciation with undue alacrity at this moment: MSNBC is giddy about this man. Even Mr. Russert's words on an Imus in the Morning program, words replayed during Mr. Russert's testimony in court the other day -- in the Scooter Libby perjury trial -- are perfectly apt: It was "Christmas Eve" in the newsroom when Libby was indicted. No doubt it is Christmas morning today.

Alas, I have proven rather incompetent in my coverage of the Obama story. For I have not properly secured the facts, though, in this digital age of plastic facts, it is not likely that I could ever pin down any fact, for facts vanish in a flash-media second. But please note that on October 24, 2006, in an essay I wrote about Mr. Obama, I noted that his September 2005 essay posted on the Daily Kos, the influential, self-described leftist blog, had as a banner advertisement the following image:



Please note Mr. Obama's placement in this advertisement. Please note that this ad was present at Mr. Obama's Daily Kos essay months before Mr. Obama even announced his exploratory committee for the presidency. Please note that MSNBC not only placed an advertisement for itself on Mr. Obama's Daily Kos diary, but MSNBC placed Mr. Obama's image adjacent to President Bush's, suggesting, perhaps, that both men are in some sort of great struggle. To MSNBC, Obama is a contender, and this MONTHS before he was indeed a contender. Amazingly, MSNBC threw Mr. Obama's hat into the presidential ring before he had himself.

Or so it looks. Or so it feels.

Unfortunately, I only took a screen shot of the actual ad. I failed to take, and preserve, a screen shot of the ad on the actual Obama page. And as you can see, the ad has been removed from Mr. Obama's essay posted, as it was, on the world's largest blog, a blog entirely devoted to political and sociological liberalism.

But who cares, right? This is, after all, the deliverer we are talking about. The great hope. And in just a little less than an hour, there will be a star over the silent little town of Springfield, Illinois. You know, where Abraham Lincoln once lived.

This is all shaping up to be a perfect little fairy tale, the kind America just loves to tell itself.

MY SKIN IS CLEAR (I think)

Curiously related to all of this mythmaking, and jarring our senses, is this essay ("Colorblind") about Mr. Obama (and race in America in general). It is published on Salon. com, and it is written by a "black" woman, Debra J. Dickerson. Perhaps you saw Ms. Dickerson on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week (in a brilliant interview). Ms. Dickerson's thesis, in case you did not know, is that Mr. Obama is NOT BLACK. I kid you not. His mother, apparently, is a white woman from Kansas, while his dad is from Kenya. That Ms. Dickerson defines blackness in political terms is astonishing: to be black in America means, strictly, to be a direct descendant of former African slaves. During Ms. Dickerson's interview with the thoroughly enjoyable Mr. Colbert, she said that Mr. Obama would be better served if he defined himself -- and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP -- as an African African-American. But he is definitely NOT black.

That this woman, who wrote the book, The End of Blackness, is ruining the great idea of a man with dark skin announcing his presidency from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, you know, the town of that great president who clearly made the first great step for the emancipation of slaves so they could become -- eventually -- candidates for President, is a fact too interesting to let pass unnoticed.

But I ask you: if being black is a political-linguistic term denoting only those who are descendants of actual African slaves imported to America, does it NOT FOLLOW that "white" is equally political, denoting only those who have descended from white slaveholders who imported African slaves to America? I think it does. And if that is the case, then, since there were no slaveholders in my ancestral gene pool, I am not white.

There you go then.

I am not white, and Barack Obama, should he become president, will not be America's first black President.

Go figure.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

American Eidola

You can laugh at me if you want, but I cannot be overly ashamed of myself for watching American Idol last night. It's not like I watched the whole thing, nor is it like I've watched every show thus far. I did not, and I have not. But I did see a good chunk of last night's broadcast of auditions from New York City, and I must say that the Big Apple seemed quite sliced and cored.

My thoughts are varied and probably contradictory about the morality of presenting to the world people who clearly have psychological issues. But this is, lest we forget, America, the home of the free to be equal and the land of the politically correct; so to handicap anyone for being, well, handicapped, is to be both illiberal and harsh. At the core of America's great progressive mythology is the idea that anyone can be whatever they dream themselves to be; and much political debate is spent on arguing how such dreams are to be achieved. I confess I have little patience for all such theorizing and haggling over terms and ethics, for it all, eventually, seems to be so much theater no matter how it is sliced and diced, drawn and quartered.

Two things strike me as sad. First, that it would seem very likely that many contestants could easily be self-promoting saboteurs. While this may seem a crazy oxymoron, it is not: there are contestants who seek to make themselves known by making a mockery of the process, and the very show, itself. American Idol's success surely has inspired its detractors, both within the entertainment industry and the culture at large. I would not be surprised if Idol encounters all sorts of guerilla-types: those who would subvert the popularity of perceived pop-star idolatry, and those guerilla theater-types who have a political axe to grind. Surely there are the Julliard-type aspiring actors who need to play a role; why not a role as an Idol contestant? Surely there are the Sacha Baron Cohen wannabes who stay in character at all costs, begging for attention from their acting peers, their fellow protestors, their fellow iconoclasts. Are many of these personae even real, even genuine, that walk or flit through the doors to face Idol's well-known judges? At times the whole thing reeks of camp, and it reminds me of the millions of face-less, nameless bloggers parading around the internet pretending to be what they are not.

My innocence, I am sorry to say, regarding "reality" programming was finally shattered when I called into the popular NPR show, "Car Talk" several years ago. How naive I was to think the show was at all spontaneous. Find out for yourself by calling 1-800-Car-Talk; the spontaneity is sheer artifice. You think those guys are brilliant diagnosticians when it comes to cars? Think again. The show is built on your phone call to an automated system wherein you provide the details of your car, its apparent problem, along with your home phone number and a convenient time for them to call. In other words, your problem is researched days, perhaps weeks, in advance.

That American Idol is nonetheless a worthy myth with doses of reality is completely satisfactory. It is, after all, a show meant to entertain.

But the saddest thing is not that Idol is a myth. What is sad is that another network (I will not mention which one, but you can guess: For you satellite TV customers, it's the network just two doors down from Fox News), has taken to the tawdriest form of journalism. Two different "news-based shows," both hosted by middle-aged men in ties, tonight had segments on American Idol. Both segments were all about denigration. And both segments were clearly born of jealousy and were meant to steal viewership -- and important ad revenues -- from a very successful and overall mostly harmless show (more on this some other time). In fact, I have seen several news segments over the last few months on said network in which Fox News, or some Fox personality, is the featured fodder for fun: even one particular commentator seems quite inexplicably obsessed with Bill O'Reilly. What we are witnessing in such TV programming is not the creation of superior art that trumps less successful fare; we are not witnessing a better team beat its opponent. What we are seeing is the talk-news, talk-TV equivalent of mere trash talk, of merely talking smack. One network in particular seems predisposed towards this sort of thing, and it is clear it is not Fox.

But forgive me for sounding like a shill for Fox and its news outlet. I am hardly that. But I am paying attention, and what I see is quite sad all around. But the saddest thing -- and it is even a little creepy -- is that other networks are doing stories about another network's shows. It is a sign of the times, Orwellian in language and Randian in import.

The have-nots want to steal from the haves, and the egalitarians are squealing.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

More Awards; The Empty Keg Award For Story Of The Year, 2006

In keeping with my promise that I shall list my awards for best and worst of 2006 (categories determined on a whim), I would like to announce the winner of the monumental -- and very first -- 2006 Empty Keg Award for Story of the Year. It is a simple award, and it is thoroughly a disappointing one. After all, what could be more disappointing than an empty keg?

Sadly, I have no idea to whom I should give this fine honor. For it has two distinct winners, and yet both stand at opposite ends of the story. On the one end is the main stream media in America (and its European counterpart), while on the other is the Bush Administration. The former deserves accolades for wresting away and gaining control of the most important story of our time; and the latter deserves the award for letting the media get away with it. The story? Well, that is simple: The story is the genesis of the Iraq Conflict. And the Empty Keg goes to all those who repackaged history, who accepted that history, and permitted that history to become normative. Just read this clip from a recent CBS News/60 Minutes interview with President George W. Bush (the president was interviewed by reporter Scott Pelley at Camp David):

PELLEY: You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?

BUSH: On what issue?

PELLEY: Well, sir . . .

BUSH: Like the weapons of mass destruction?

PELLEY: No weapons of mass destruction.

BUSH: Yeah.

PELLEY: No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

BUSH: Yeah.

PELLEY: The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we're over 400.

BUSH: I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha.

The sentence in bold is highlighted as a perfect exemplar of the Great Revision. To which, incredibly, the president says, "Yeah."

For sheer fun, for the jolly folly of it all, let me remind readers that A) there was not one minute from 1991 to March 2003 that the United States was not in military conflict with Iraq; B) that President Bill Clinton received during his term in office news of a fatwa - drafted by Osama bin Laden in 1998 - which called for death to Americans everywhere; C) that the fatwa placed America's continued oppression -- directed by President Clinton -- of Iraq and the Iraqi people as the primary reason Americans should be killed; D) that in 1998 President Bill Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act calling for "regime change" in that tired country; E) and that the United States was attacked by Osama bin Laden in 2001 as a direct result of its bellicose posture towards Iraq (throughout the 1990's, the Clinton Administration bombed Iraq nearly every other day).

Thus, two things: The Iraq/September 11 connection is a causal one; and is so utterly credible it is incredible that anyone could be ignorant of this fact; and secondly, it is despicable that these historic facts have been permitted to drift into oblivion by the press and the president. And these are not the only facts in the case!

Nevertheless, because we at Contratimes have been wide-eyed and unblinking as we watched propaganda attain the status of absolute truth, we can with clarity of mind and soul pronounce that the 2006 Empty Keg Award for Story of the Year is well-deserved by many who walk this planet. I think the Empty Keg Award should be passed around like the Stanley Cup: first, it should go to the editorial offices of the New York Times, then to Keith Olbermann, and then to the White House. And I am sure Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean will want to share it with their many fellow revisionists.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

For some further commentary regarding Iraq, 9/11, and the 9/11 Commission Report, go here. Then there is my incomparable "Adam and Eve Must Have Been Neo-Cons."

The New York Times' drug dealers, Part II

(Part I of this ridiculously outstanding series begins here.)

[In keeping with my claim made yesterday that "the New York Times is the opiate of the people," and that its columnists are essentially dealers in said opiate, I continue with Mr. Frank Rich.]

On Sunday, 5.8.05, Frank Rich rebuked the media for its increasing complicity in perpetuating the propaganda of the Bush administration; for its pandering to its own corporate interests; and for its lack of journalistic standards. Laced through Rich's essay, Laura Bush's Mission Accomplished, are heavy doses of soporifics that yield little else but oscitancy, you know, yawning.

Here's essentially Rich's argument: Media respect in the broader culture is on the skids because the masses are sick and tired of the media kow-towing to the Bush adminstration. A more liberal, aggressive, and independent press would do wonders for the press' bad image problems, at least Rich believes.

To think that Rich only mentions the Jayson Blair scandal in passing - which is a real scandal at the Times - and yet suggests that Laura Bush's jokes were scandalously applauded by a "sycophantic" press, reveals that Mr. Rich has his priorities in odd order. It's not that the press has been too timid in its reportage, Mr. Rich, a timidity that has media ratings sliding down the tubes. It's that the press' reportage has been dishonest.

What? Does Rich forget the 60 Minutes documents already? Does he think the Jayson Blair story is a rare anomaly? Does he think that most consumers of news believe that the media are fair, or unbiased? Come now, Mr. Rich. Most people recognize that the media are almost entirely composed of supporters of one political party. That is why media outlets are finding it hard to dominate their markets: Because more and more consumers are hip to the fact that NEWS is no longer the scoop. SPIN is the scoop.

Media outlets no longer (largely because it is a 24/7 never-to-stop lustfest for one-upsmanship) take the time to find real news rooted in real events; they look for real events and real news to spin in a particularly unique and marketable way. Should the NYT begin to market a product that was spun conservative (no gay wedding announcements, an op-ed page like the WSJ, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Bob Herbert replaced by Ann Coulter, Rich Lowry, and David Horowitz), that paper would see its left-leaning market decline, a market it has created by appealing to the left in the tri-state area; complete with a mystique that the "paper of record" is where serious thinkers get their news (a mystique which appeals to the Democrats in my sleepy little NH town). So, it's not about the news, Mr. Rich, but the ideology in which the news is cradled, even shaped.

But here is the reality, gleaned from my own years as a print journalist. Please allow these few anecdotes to help build my case.

In 1983, I believe, while sitting with my father during his lunch break in the main hall of the MacDowell Art Colony (my father was the maintenance foreman at that esteemed retreat), I watched a televised mid-day news conference with President Ronald Reagan. I recall that at no time did President Reagan raise his hand, or touch his face, during his opening statements. Then, as he fielded questions pertaining to numerous topics including the invasion of Grenada, President Reagan scratched the side of his head while listening to one reporter's question. The instant he raised his hand, every motor-driven 35mm camera in the White House press room ripped off countless frames, the mad whirring and clicking evident to the TV audience.

The next day, on the front page of the Boston Globe, above the fold, was a photo of President Reagan, in a boxed story. The photo showed Reagan scratching his head, his mouth slightly open as if speaking, with a pullout quote in bold text adjacent to his image. The quote, about Grenada, read something like this: "Um, I am not sure ... I don't know about ..." Amazingly, the question that was being asked when Reagan touched his head was not about Grenada at all. So, the editors of the Globe ran an unflattering image of the President scratching his head to convey the idea that he did not know what the hell was going on. (Please realize: He was not speaking when the photo was taken; he was listening, and, for an instant, the camera lied.)

THIS is why the media are (and have been) losing America's respect, Mr. Rich!

But there is more. While I was covering Barbara Bush's 1991 campaign for her husband's presidential bid, I recall the repugnant commentary of the press pack following her. It was replete with indecency. The topper? A Boston TV news anchor turned to me and asked rhetorically, "Why should we care what she says. She just f---- the president."

While working as a staffer at what is touted as the "most liberal newspaper in New Hampshire" (the 60 town region it covers now votes almost exclusively Democratic. Surprised?), I recall that the sarcastic, critical attitude that pervaded the newsroom without so much as a moment of self-reflection, struck me as endemic to the whole newsgathering process. And when it came to photographing candidates for office as they stumped through the region, countless photos were taken, with the least flattering images going to the Republicans. In fact, the chief of photography, one of my dearest friends and a longtime Massachusetts Democrat, confessed to me that he ALWAYS submits the least flattering photographs of Republicans possible. Why? Because to him they are nothing but "greedy, lying bastards." And this from an award-winning photojournalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Associated Press and Washington Post.

Recently, I was assigned by a major national news outlet (this admission may cost me my relationship there) to photograph (and I will be as discreet as possible) a story related to a major international conflict. The photo editor requested in an email photo request that I take a "moody portrait" of a particular person. Can you guess which way the story was going to lean when a photo editor asks for a portrait to be "moody"?

That the news media create news where there is none; that they bend it to conform to an ideological market they want to exploit for cash; that they scoop each other not with news but with spin; these are the reasons Americans no longer trust the media. Moreover, Americans don't trust the media because they think more carefully than Frank Rich.

Mr. Rich need only look at his own work, and the work of his paper, to see why the media have fallen in such disrepute and disrepair. The slovenliness of Mr. Rich's colleague, Bob Herbert, for instance, in his last two columns, is a perfect example of why Americans are looking high and low for more trustworthy sources.

Contratimes

PS. Dear Mr. Rich,

Do you mind if I challenge you, since you are part of the press? Surely you don't. So, one more thing. When you berate the press for failing to get into President Bush's face for his announcement two years ago that 'major combat operations were over' in Iraq, you know, the "Mission Accomplished speech"; do you realize how inane you sound? For how is it that controlling a nation's commerce; its infrastructure and superstructure; its airfields and airspace; its military, government and its power plants; its highways and schools, how is it, dear sir, that such an accomplishment does not signify to you the END of major combat operations? Are we still in need of hurling cruise missiles in the Sunni triangle from warships in the Persian Gulf? Are we still in need of B-52 sorties dropping Daisy Cutters on Saddam's Republican Guard? Do we need to send tank battalions to level Iraqi defenses?

How long, dear sir, does America need to control (total control is impossible) a nation thousands of miles away before you - and your clairvoyant colleagues - will tell us when major combat is indeed over?

Peace.

BG

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.