Dahr Jamail has an article today in Salon that illustrates Glenn’s point quite clearly, as well as just how it has affected the coverage of the war.

The “domination” of the media – insisting that they become “bad stenographers” - was planned and executed much better than anything else in the war.

“This is what it means, in Pentagon terms, to dominate not only the battlefield, but the media landscape in which that battlefield is reported. And that sort of domination was, it turned out, very much on Pentagon minds in that period.”

…“It is an indication of the success of an effective Pentagon "tactical perception management campaign," of the way the Bush administration has continued to "catapult propaganda," and of the dehumanization of Iraqis that has gone with it, that the possibility of the number of dead Iraqis being in this range has largely been dismissed (or remained generally undealt with) in the mainstream media in the United States.”

Because of this domination, right-wing bloggers (e.g. Don Surber) are once again unfurling their “mission accomplished” banners even though much of Iraq is still too dangerous for Western reporters to travel in or report freely.

And Rush says that the goal of “political progress” is just an instance of the Democrats moving the goalposts when the opposite is true – it was the administration’s goal. Only with a “dominated” media would he and the right-wing smear machine dare to make such a claim.

The administration may have indeed created their “own reality” in the U.S. media, but that doesn’t change anything in Iraq.

Somehow, despite all the propaganda, the American public has come to the conclusion that if this is “winning” they don’t want any more of it.

http://tinyurl.com/3b66ya

What this demonstrates about how our establishment media outlets think and function is, at this point, obviously far more important than the original (still uncorrected) fear-mongering lies in Klein's column about the Terrorist-loving House Democrats.~GG

The two are inseparable – the “fear-mongering” lies about the “terrorist-loving” House Democrats – has become the function of our establishment media.

As Billmon put it:

“But the corporate media’s present eagerness to suck and lick the private parts of right-wing extremists is based on an increasingly frantic belief that this is what the audience wants. With their massive market power, however, the mega-monsters also have the ability to shape consumer appetites – creating, in effect, a demand for the kind of content they want to supply.”

Let’s put it bluntly – in our new Limbaugh Nation, there is no place for a watchdog over government corruption, no place for real journalism, or any sort of checks and balances of any kind on the massive marketing power that, by it’s very nature, will not only control the kind of government we have, the kind of media we have, but become our government.

The function of our establishment media, at this point, is government. That’s how they govern - by convincing "consumers" (at one time known as citizens) that their government (and their media) is supplying what they demand.

Oh boy, Klein really knows how to pick ‘em.

The source he relied on for FISA (Hoekstra) is the same Congressman who became a laughingstock (with Rick Santorum) when he claimed he’d found the WMDs!

Funny thing about his claim, though, it was quickly debunked. His “big” news was old news, and his evidence turned out to be only a few old weapons from before 1991 that could no longer be used as designed.

Both our Military and intelligence agencies have admitted that they didn’t find the WMDs that the Bush administration cited to justify the invasion in 2003.

So Hoekstra’s “phantom” WMDs became a joke, just like his new claims about FISA will be, as well as his call for “bi-partisanship” which translates to “support Bush.”

This is just more damaging evidence for Klein’s already non-existent credibility.

Somebody, get the hook.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200607070007

Now I may be twice as old and half as smart as young Matt Yglesias, but I think he’s giving Joe Klein way too much credit by insisting that Klein’s real point isn’t about FISA, but about rebuilding “the non-toxic atmosphere of bipartisan cooperation that served the country through most of its history.”

Uh, Matt, did you see what Joe did here? He went to one of the most partisan members of Congress for advice on the FISA bill and then used that totally “wrong” information about the bill to scare and smear the Democrats with Rush Limbaugh “salivating” and the GOP’s general theme that the Democrats are “weak on National Security.”

Sorry, Matt, but those are not the actions of someone who is acting to promote “bipartisan cooperation” but rather a fierce partisan for the GOP hiding behind his “liberal” perch at Time.

I’ve reached the point where anytime I hear the word “bi-partisanship” I know I’m about to be fed total GOP hackery, whether it comes in the form of High Broderism or the suffocating sanctimony of Joe Lieberman.

Oh, sure, at some point we need to get beyond the toxic atmosphere of the day, but that isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future and might not ever happen if the toxic gasbags ruling the airwaves today aren’t eventually marginalized.

http://tinyurl.com/2novg5