There was a reason our founding fathers included in our establishing documents the very important assertion that our republic required a "free press" along with the right to the exercise of free speech. The "right " of the press [nowadays with technological advances we call it the media] was intended to be much more; namely, an OBLIGATION placed on the press to safeguard its citizens from the designs of a despotic government. Only the media, with its abundant resources and broad capability of educating the public, is able to accomplish those tasks. More recently, Richard Nixon would never have resigned and Bill Clinton would never have been impeached without the efforts of the media in exposing scandals and ensuring that the consequences of corruption and folly could not be ignored. But, ironically, the beginning of the end of the era in which our media were exercising their proper role began to occur during the 90's in their frenzied, unwarrented attacks on Clinton. And now our current media have totally abandoned their traditional role, retreated behind feigned "objectivity", and have failed utterly in protecting the American people from the effects of corruption of the ruling administration. It is no wonder, then, the commentary articles tell us what we already know: the Bush administration is getting off nearly completely free of the consequences of its corruption and drive toward absolute power. Fact fail, despite (ineffective) press editorials and columns, quickly forgotten, because the media present their prosaic little arguments then back off, making no attempt to pursue an issue of real importance beyond those petulant contentions. And so they instead waste our time with entertaining nonsense. They have lost their nerve, their cojones, they are useless. The media have died. We need something effective to replace them.

Editor:

Danner is grimly lucid in analogizing the present paralysis of just consequence to the futility within an Eastern European totalitarian regime. He worries that the Bush administration has found a way to generate sufficient public futility that reasonable folks have retreated from engagement into small private comforts.

Others, he believes, smoldering in impotent rage, plunge into retaliatory excess, mirroring Rove's perversion of language and obliterating rational discourse.

In some ways it is fear used again to decimate democracy. But in the past, the stakes were different. The Big Lie would be used to smear a candidate and achieve power. This could be reversed by a change of power. Now - the lies create such inexorable momentum (i.e.the Iraq War, the budget deficit, torn safety nets, etc.) that the damage becomes irreparable.

The destructive consequences of Bush policies have overwhelmed the mechanisms of reasoning. It's said that rationalization is like watering a plant with toxic fluid. It feels like our capacity to exercise reason has- thus - been poisoned.

How tasty it is to enjoy a couple of old pros going at it hammer and tongs on the premier topic of our life and times. I'm not so sure Mr. Danner's argument for the Dems going soft on impeaching Bush holds up. Here's why. In 1998 when the GOP impeached WJC and subsequently lost seats, a vastly different set of circumstances applied. America was at peace, the economy was healthy, and the impeachable offence was a matter that the majority of Americans believed was between the President and his lawfully wedded wife, despite WJC's pussy-footing semantics.

Granted that Rove can crank the fear lever at will and that TeamBush will strategically strike Iran to distract voters with short attention spans, however circumstances have changed dramatically since 1998. BushCo have blown off more goodwill than a gormless intern could ever have dreamed of. A recent CBS poll shows the Dems nudging ahead for the first time in a long time on the issue of national security. Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war, that's the real thing, and not some phoney war on an abstract noun. The Commander-in-Chief has become Chief 34%FallingFast; WJC in his darkest hour still had the support of a clear majority of Americans. Compounding contemporary GOP woes are another half dozen issues from illegal spying on U.S.citizens at home, a Godzilla deficit, a motza of high profile corruption court cases pending, and the imperial chutzpah of outsourcing management of six major ports to the lovely folk who washed the funds that financed the 9/11 attacks. The cognitive dissonance on this last item will present quite a challenge for a professional spin meistre like Karl, especially when the horses are restless and the polls are plummeting.

Fortune favors the brave, Mr. Danner, if the Dems squib impeachment and roll over again, I believe Rudi will stomp them and America into oblivion come November 2008. Personnal may change but the game of GOP control remains the same.

"analogizing"?

Yes, that's right, you, everyone reading this, could open the front door and be whisked off by the FBI and confined without any rights whatever and kept indefinitely, no contact with family, no lawyer, no habeus corpus. It does no good that you didn't "do anything." Mistakes are made. People have similar names to other people and the authorities get confused. Innocent contacts, travel to other countries, etc. may be deemed suspicious. This appalling situation is tolerated by a large, apathetic majority in the US that has been so instilled with fear that they have lost their bearings on their basic rights. This is identical to the "desapparacidos" of Argentina, Chile, Mexico, etc. I read that "only the President [himself]" can taken away all of your rights. But the President [himself] obviously knows nothing about you, only what he is told by others. So anonymous lower-level people can have you imprisoned indefinitely with no rights simply by passing the word to the President that this needs to be done. And there is no recourse. Sad sad sad.

Thank you, Mr. Danner and Mr. Engelhardt, for that brave and fascinating interview. Two quibbles:

1. It is wrong, even as an analogy, to describe this administration's policy as governing through 50.1% of the people. The whole point of the last six years is that a flawed electoral system has allowed a minority of rural red-state Americans to control the federal government. And as much as we might hope that THEIR flirtation with right-wing extremism is coming to an end, nothing has changed, institutionally, since 2000. A vote for president in Wyoming in 2008 will still carry four times the electoral weight of a vote in San Francisco; most mid-term races in 2006 will take place solely within the many small red states; and the result will again be a federal government that neither reflects nor respects the wishes of the people.

2. Mainstream media have been willing participants, rather than innocent victims, in the subjugation of truth. As proof, consider the so-called case for war made by Colin Powell at the U.N. in February 2003. That "case" consisted of half-truths, exaggerations, and lies; and an independent media would have examined the various assertions, and reported accordingly. For example, the claim that a terrorist group associated with al-Qaeda was building WMD in a training camp "in a part of Iraq not under Saddam [Hussein]'s control." It is curious that the U.S. government, rather than, I don't know, SURPRISING the alleged camp and arresting the inmates, instead took aerial photos of it to display at the U.N., thus allowing the terrorists to esacpe. But never mind any of that: the immediate and unanimous reaction of the U.S. media was "Case closed (let's go to war)!"

Oh, and by the way, Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.