the media

So now we have our president-elect. Yeah!  SO happy that he is not McCain.  I just wish he were Dennis Kucinich.

And naturally, today, less than 24 hours after the results of the election are announced, CNN’s Campbell Brown gets on my teevee and solemnly swears that she will remember Obama’s campaign promises. She reads from her list of bullet points in the background (“Tax breaks. Health insurance. Energy reform. Etc.”) and states she and CNN follow him closely and make sure he keeps his word. Because they are doing their job of “keeping them honest.”

So let’s get this straight: after 8 years of the media sitting around idly picking their noses until their heads caved in, while Bush and his gang of thugs trashed the law of the land, broke international treaties, and passed dozens of secret laws without a peep of protest from them, they take one look at the young black president-elect who got his start as a Constitutional lawyer and decide NOW is the time to get all watchdog on our behalf. What breath-taking hypocrisy.

Update May, ’09

Now that Obama has been in office for 4 months, I think that someone (i.e., us) had better watch carefully.  He seems to be continuing with some of the more awful of the Bush policies and adamantly refusing to look into the lawlessness of that administration. This does not bode well for the future.  I suspect that the ongoing Cheney/Obama “dialogues” regarding torture, Guantanamo, and the legalities of same are actually good cop/bad cop routines designed to lull the public.  Cheney looks “wrong” and criminal, which makes Obama look “good” and reasonable – but if Obama continues the same policies of state secrets, military commissions, looting the treasury to enrich the wealthy, preemptive strikes on Middle Eastern countries (do not kid yourself: “Af-Pak”, or the “Long War”,  is about a natural-gas pipeline and oil, not terrorism or American freedoms), if Obama continues these policies and actions unquestioned by the public just because they see him as the “good guy”, we have not changed anything at all.  In fact, it may be the more dangerous to our liberties and freedoms as it comes in the guise of “doing what is reasonable” and is being promoted by such a “nice guy”.

I don’t think, however, that Campbell Brown (or most of the media) is cluing in on what the problem is, though.  I watched her once or twice and then discontinued  as I found her to be anti-Obama for the sake of it, rather than to take a hard look at actual policy.  I, quite frankly, don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s Bush or Obama, a Democrat or a Republican: bad policy is bad policy and lawlessness is just that.