It seems as though the networks learned at least one thing during the Bush years; ignoring a story and creating a distraction tosses it down the memory hole, no matter how significant and damning the story may be. In the course of their collusion with the administration, they have learned the value of, and now obviously adopted, its techniques.

All of which would only be rational, were they, say aspiring politicians, or aggressive corporate plunderers, but they are supposed to be, albeit nominally, "News" organizations.

One would think they were concealing their roles out of embarrassment, if one were inclined to be charitable. But I think it's more accurate to say that they have sampled the prerogatives of power, including the power to deceive, and like it.

They join Dick Cheney in saying, "So?"

I remain curious as to whether the persistence of this story in the blogosphere will finally seep into MSM coverage. Clearly, laws were broken on the part of the Pentagon side, and equally clearly, the networks who trotted out these shills feel comfortable hiding behind their first amendment "rights" while hoping the whole thing blows over.

Having checked their credibility at the door during the Clinton impeachment, gotten by without it during the 2000 election, and left the premises without picking it up after 9/11, the networks feel entirely comfortable simply assuming the public they obviously hold in deep contempt to forget, yet again. This is a somewhat understandable strategy; it's worked so well before, all of them are playing along, and opening Pandora's box benefits none and discredits all. Worse, of the segment of the public who are aware and rightly disgusted by this shameful abuse of trust, most aren't surprised, and at any rate expect them to get away with it again.

In a cold, "heads we win, tails you lose" calculation, those responsible at the networks have decided to stick with the usual strategy of preaching to the choir, distracting the congregation, and the nonbelievers can go, well, Cheney said it best.

It's a disturbing situation, where the government and media can join together to deceive the majority of their constituents/consumers, while rendering silent and ineffective those who would counter them with the truth.

One can only hope that as the Bush Administration slinks away, despised by the vast majority of those it once purported to "serve," the media that enabled will be consigned to a similar fate, that of a contemptible irrelevance.

The enormity of the catastrophe they've left in their collective, overlapping wakes, will go down in history, when unfortunately, as Bush said, "We'll all be dead."

All of us should dedicate ourselves not to let them get away with it.

Aych, I'm well aware that certain news barons have, at times, lapsed into such deviant complicity with the government they were supposedly "covering."

What feels new is the unanimity of the practice now. No longer is it one or two "news" organs that are corrupted, it is all of them, to the point where the one that steps out of line, in this case the NYT, stands alone. Admittedly, the Washington Post found itself in a similar spot after the 1972 election, but the other segments of the media were more ignorant than complicit in allowing that to happen, and the story was much murkier and (it seemed at the time) a little less significant than the pretext for a preemptive war.

Funny, although the Nixon Administration politicized, expanded, lengthened, and manipulated the Vietnam war to arrogate more power, screw its enemies, and enhance government secrecy, they didn't start the damn thing to do so.

For that, the Bushies get the prize. Cheney was taking notes, wasn't he?

Mona, thanks for the chuckle; I too am in favor of organized sodomy. There are some things one can be disorganized about, and sodomy is decidedly not among them.

But thanks for not completing that thought, since everyone her is fully capable of doing so.

What's better than roses on a piano?

Until a couple of weeks ago, Friedman seemed to have vanished from the NYT op-ed page, and I fantasized for a time that he had been quietly canned, perhaps to atone for the dismally misguided choice the paper had made in putting Bill Kristol there. Though too good to be true, it made sense to me that since two of their "liberals," Friedman and Dowd, were clearly unhinged irrelevancies, perhaps a search was on for someone with something to contribute to the page.

Alas, it was not to be. The Foghorn Leghorn of the of the chickenhawk class is back, and apparently better than ever. Perhaps he should reissue his unreadable claptrap, "The World is Flat," under the new title, "The World Ought to Be Flattened."

It never ceases to amaze me that, among the Serious, each lost war begs for another, while among normal Americans, the warmongers look like bigger idiots with each passing day.

Maybe Friedman's alter ego will show up (again?) in the comments to set us all straight....

Apparently Friedman never learned the song about swallowing the spider to catch the fly, either. Especially how it ends.

GC... placing any bets on how long it will take our friend to show up, and under what name this time?