The Unspoken Co-conspirators

We hear much these days about the lies of administration officials which brought the U.S. to the sorry state of affairs in Iraq today. What we hear little of is the role played by the U.S. media in carrying the Bush administration propaganda directly to the people with precious little analysis, skepticism or criticism. Such lack is a colossal and criminal negligence on the part of what used to be an adversarial (if often friendly) relationship between the press and media and the White House.



As Americans rightly express their outrage with the failure of the Bush Iraq policy, we must remember the central role played by the media in pumping up a kind of mass hysteria surrounding alleged weapons of mass destruction. In the future it will be shown that certain people in the administration knew exactly what they were doing in playing the fear card. It will also be shown that the media, cowed by the fall-out from the attacks of September 11, 2001, instead of maintaining an objective distance from the President, instead simply asked where to line up and salute (as Dan Rather infamously offered.) There must come a time of accountability for the press and media as well. May God have mercy on these slimy people of the pen. In a sense of Christian charity may they be spared the fate they consigned thousands of American soldiers and many more thousands of Iraqi citizens to, dear in their humanity, even as each of us in this great land is dear and precious.