Bread and Circus

While we were busy voting for Fantasia on American Idol, the Constitution got shredded.

The lawlessness of the Administration is jaw-dropping. The 4th and 14th Amendments no longer matter if the Presidnet really really wants to listen to your conversations. Your right to peacably assemble has been restricted to "free speech zones." The freedom of religion has been compromised by the unwarrented surveillance of mosques.

In a display of broad-mindedness, the Administration is just as scornful of international law as it is of the Constitution: the argument that al Quaida suspects are not protected by the Geneva Convention suggests how above the law the President and his cronies believe themselves to be.

What concerns me most, though, is the news media. Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera headquarters. The Pentagon is planting stories in the foreign media. The White House hired a male prostitute to pose as a reporter to give the Prez softball questions when he got into trouble with real reporters. These tactics are reprehensible, and betray the contempt that Bush et al have for truth.

But why aren't these egregious violations of law and principle front page news? Why did the NYT sit on the wiretap story for so long? Why does Nicole Richie make the news more often that Jeff Gannon/James Guckert?

I'm tired of blaming the consumer. Yeah, we may all be a bunch of Philistines who care more about Evan Mariott than about foreign policy. But we're not the one's with big money ties to the status quo. So I'm done blaming us. Let the producers of the news have some integrity and start doing their damn jobs.