The MSM has been too reverential towards George W. Bush. Yeah, that's the ticket. The only thing more absurd than that assertion was Arianna Huffington's willingness to accept it as a fact in answering a question. Here was the exchange between Huffington and Choire Sicha, writing for the LA Times, in today's "Sunday Conversation" feature [emphasis added]:CHOIRE SICHA: It was only recently that this spell of reverence for Bush lifted. Why'd it take so long?The conversation later provided another rib-tickler from the HuffPo hostess [emphasis added]:
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: I think it took so long because there is something about the conventional wisdom that is very addictive to members of the press. They don't want to diverge from it too far.
SICHA: Now that the Bush administration is closing up shop, do you think that the hatred of the media that they've inflamed will finally cool?
HUFFINGTON: I don't really think it's the Bush administration that's fueled the hatred of the media. I think it was the media's complicity in the lead-up to the war in Iraq that has been one of the darkest moments of American media -- and that helped fuel a lot of the dissatisfaction with the traditional media.
So Americans dislike the MSM not because the media is largely a bunch of liberal elitists far outside the political/cultural mainstream, but because for a fleeting few months in 2002-03 they weren't uniformly opposed to the Iraq war—a "sin" they've expiated a million times over the ensuing six years. Right.
Photo LA Times/Liz O. Baylen
