If I recall, you were arguing for a party-based difference in journalistic coverage.

I believe I repeatedly tried to distinguish between 'liberal' and Democratic -- why else did I give those examples of hawkish foreign policies by Democrats?

To feel sympathy when the major news media complains that it was manipulated by the powerful, you at least have to get the feeling that they're the type of people who would object to such manipulation.

I remember (and now have looked up) when Chomsky quoted, in one of the Necessary Illusions appendices, former vice-president of the Guatemala-overthrowing and Colombia-union slaughtering United Fruit Company Thomas McCann:

...in internal government discussions on the eve of the overthrow of the government of Guatemala in 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles "expressed very great concern about the Communist line being followed by Sydney Gruson in his dispatches to the New York Times," which President Eisenhower then described as "the most untrustworthy newspaper in the United States." CIA director Allen Dulles "pointed out some very disturbing features of Sidney Gruson's career to date" and the assembled dignitaries decided "to talk informally to the management of the New York Times" -- successfully, it appears; Gruson was sent to Mexico after Allen Dulles communicated to the top Times management suspicions that Gruson and his wife, Times columnist Flora Lewis, were Communist agents or sympathizers, asking the Times to remove him from Central America during the coup.

This was during a period when the Times and other media were being spoon-fed appropriate material by the public relations specialists of the United Fruit Company, though, as its PR director Thomas McCann later wrote:

"It is difficult to make a convincing case for manipulation of the press when the victims proved so eager for the experience."

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s22.html

But then, this was during the media's halcyon golden era of the 1950's, back when they were supposedly better and less manipulated and all. Or was their excuse for their rotten coverage then the Cold War and Anti-Communism, which we'll just add to the long list of excuses for why the major news media always make giant failures and collapses which happen to favor the right wing.

I can't exactly say that I've seen too many examples, either in my lifetime or in the history I've heard, read, & discussed, of Congress or mainstream thinkers disputing the "near-dictatorial" powers of the Presidency in foreign policy.

Nobody, for example, directly voted to help Ronald Reagan directly facilitate genocide in Guatemala, but they didn't do a whole lot to stop him, either.

I agree that this reality is a terrible departure from Constitutional theory, and many Americans' ideal of what they would like to believe.

However, the Bush Jr. Republicans are in reality just making a more fake division: the previously and hideously weak constraints on Executive power is too much for them. Whereas previous Presidents had to, say, pretend to respect Congress & hearings regarding their typical near-dictatorial exercise of foreign policy power.

The ugly reality is that there are no extra-terrestrial authorities capable of dragging the near-dictatorial Executive Branch authorities into Hague-like trials for their regular crimes against humanity. So in reality it doesn't matter to Americans or the world if their presidents regularly facilitate genocide or mass slaughter in other countries. For Cambodia, and Guatemala alone three entire Executive Branches might have in that extra-terrestrially-run world justice system been tried & given life in prison. (Just assuming the E.T. gods weren't into capital punishment.)

I'm all for people arguing (correctly) against interpreting the Constitution giving the President "near-dictatorial" authority in foreign policy, but I'm certainly not going to go live in imaginary la-la land and pretend that it isn't an accurate description of actual history.

Wow, it sure would be unfortunate if all these wealthy Bush Jr. Republicans had also somehow managed to lose any record of their income, gifts, and thus the taxes for which they'll be liable.

Gosh, that would be inconvenient. They'd just have to pay a much lower tax rate because they had accidentally misplaced or erased any reference to a lot of other valuables they had received.

These guys are so, so unlucky.

Are we sure that given the dodgy record of the White House on allowing inspectors to review documents, e-mails, and other information, that they aren't developing an illegal nuclear weapons program in defiance of international agreements?

Perhaps we're going to have to consider beginning with sanctions and working with a Coalition to stop this rogue regime from its plans.

I mean, maybe once in a while if the dude says something amazing or extremely interestingly controversial. But why does every single comments section devolve to being around his inane rants?

I have been highly impressed with the government's ability to portray its lunatic occupation in Iraq as simultaneously having been won, continuing to be won, in danger of being lost, and on the path to victory!

Since there is one, and only one, category of defeat -- and that is if U.S. politicians decide to have the U.S. military leave Iraq -- does that mean that literally nothing can happen in Iraq, ever, as long as U.S. troops are there, which would represent anything other than an improvement and movement toward victory?