http://www.amazon.com/Feet-Fire-Media-After-Journalists/dp/1591023432/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8740797-7777447?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175262744&sr=8-1

Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11, Top Journalists Speak Out (Hardcover)

I'm only about 1/2 way through it but it does provide a decent post-mortem on the Pre-war Iraq coverage including interviews with people who defend their pre-war coverage.

I agree that there's always a danger of oversimplifying the problem and I admire your willingness to tackle the issue head-on.

http://www.online-literature.com/view.php/1984/17?term=%20two%20contradictory%20beliefs

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years -- to arrest the course of history.

May I suggest that having a corporate media & wealthy individuals owning the media creates a right wing tilt toward how the news is presented

Many of the people who own media organizations also own other concerns. I don't think they micromanage to the degree you think. Quite the opposite, I think they manage by spreadsheet and don't look ENOUGH at the details of what their operations do. But by thinking of revenue/cost first, they end up shortchanging the newsrooms. The result is institutional laziness, which makes it easier for official talking points to permeate the coverage. (After all, one need only retype what was said as opposed to investigate - investigations cost money!)

The right-wing spin is a byproduct, not necessarily the goal.

The one that said that conservatives believe in limited government and balanced budgets.

Homeschooled and ready to lead the invisible majority in the hopefully not too violent revolution!

Someone doesn't get out enough!

Jonathan....

If the woman from the airport doesn't have rights then why are you wasting any energy telling us about her. Without rights her plight is completely irrelevant to anything. You have no basis to complain and no one cares.

What?

Someone agrees that she's been treated unjustly?

I guess that means she has rights after all. ex nihilo....

Different possibilities exist for why this is; one I think is possible is that we are pattern makers, and we tend to first try to make things fit in existing patterns before we adjust or make new ones

I personnally think we operate at two levels. I think one's basic (for lack of a better phrase) political parameters are layed out at a rather early age. (certainly by the time I hit 6th grade mine were established.) At that level I think people seek there comfort level in where they go for information and discussion. But at the detailed level of "what's the best course of action today?", we have a much greater degree of flexibilty. After all, there are literally millions of people who supported our invasion of Iraq in 2003 who don't support it now. They are still the same people. They still have the same basic political outlook.

And what's even more remarkable is that their change of heart probably isn't dictated by their absorbing new factual data but rather their reevaluation of the trustworthiness of their data sources.

asking if the president should have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens with no review is sort of like asking "what do want for Christmas?"

The reason the protection of habeus corpus was enshrined in the Constitution was because the founders knew human nature well enough to know that if they didn't, times like these would eventually come.

If they're going to ignore the Constitution however I wish they'd have the decency to dispose of it properly instead of simply allowing to atrophy like a disused limb.

The most unfortunate Liberal legacy was the retirement of Civics lessons from our classrooms, in the name of freedom from thought coersion

but not having had children I never knew first hand that this was the case. So when EXACTLY did we start raising a generation that was totally ignorant of our founding documents.

Once again shooter proves the opposite point of the one he's trying to make. If someone had asked him a question regarding habeus corpus and the rights of citizens vs non-citizens then maybe he's have some justification for lawyering up. As it is he was asked an incredibly simple question about right and wrong and he lawyered up anyway.