Letters to the Editor
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Zack:
That bright line is precisely what the “press” failed to convey to the American people, and this monstrous bill was the result of this failure.
Precisely. As I've been trying to explain to people who e-mail in order to inquire/complain about my focus on the media (and it's actually a myth that this focus is recent, but leave that aside), a focus on our broken media is not a neglect of other "more important" issues. That is what lay at the core of all of these other issues -- the fact that our government is able to engage in conduct and obscure what it's really doing and the true implications because of the way our press covers and discusses the government.
That is the principal lesson I learned since I started blogging -- that absent either fundamental reform on the part of the media or the development of real alternatives, discussions of these other issues can generate only limited results. I realized that in the context of writing about the NSA scandal -- the enormous gap between what was revealed and what the press conveyed about it.
That is what explains how George Bush -- once he was caught breaking the law as clearly and deliberately as can be -- was able to go on television and not only admit to his lawbreaking, but vow that it would continue. Someone can write all the pretty, eloquent legal posts they want refuting all of the "legal arguments" offered by the DOJ to justify that conduct. Absent a change in how these issues are discussed, that doesn't matter.