We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less.
This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush's presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point.
The thing is, Bush's campaign of outright lying and massive disinformation simply would not work if the press did their fuckig job and fact-checked all these things. Doing "he said / she said" news stories, in an effort to be "balanced," when the facts overwhelmingly point in one direction or another (Abramoff, Katrina, 9/11 Commission, Illegal Domestic Wiretapping, etc., etc., etc.) isn't "balanced," at all. It's irresponsible and neglegent, and does an enormous disservice to people who want to be informed, and think they are in posession of the facts, when they're actually being fed White House propaganda and misinformation by journalists.
Like I've said the four other times the media have actually pointed out what a miserable failure this douchebag is: good job, guys. Will this be the time you stay on the story? Or are you going back to Aruba?
(via AmericaBlog)