Category: Media Beat column
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The Incredible Blight of TV Punditry
When super-pundit Robert Novak stormed off the set of a live CNN show Thursday — just after uttering what the New York Times delicately calls “a profanity” — it was an unusual episode of TV punditry. With rare exceptions, the slick commentators of televisionland keep their cool. But we’d be much better off if they…
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Media Flagstones Along a Path to War on Iran
On Tuesday, big alarm bells went off in the national media echo chamber, and major U.S. news outlets showed that they knew the drill. Iran’s nuclear activities were pernicious, most of all, because people in high places in Washington said so. It didn’t seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported:…
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Operation Withdrawal Scam
A few days ago, the White House launched a new phase of its propaganda siege for the Iraq war. The opening salvo came on July 27, when the commander of American forces in Iraq said that continuation of recent trends would make possible “some fairly substantial reductions” of U.S. troop levels in the spring and…
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Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist?
The acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often voiced enthusiasm for violent destruction by the U.S. government. Hidden in plain sight, his glee about such carnage is worth pondering. Many people view Friedman as notably articulate, while others find him overly glib, but there’s no doubt that he is an influential commentator with…
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“Wagging the Puppy” — and Unleashing the Deadly Dogs of War
Midway through this month, the Karl Rove scandal was dominating the national news — until the sudden announcement of a Supreme Court nominee interrupted the accelerating momentum of the Rove story. Since then, some anti-Bush groups and progressive pundits have complained that the White House manipulated the media agenda. But when it comes to deploying…