Democrats ... will take any Republican down for any reason (legitimate or not) any chance they get and the mainstream media will help them...
Let's see now ... who is that owns the mainstream media? Multi-gigabuck corporations, with financial interests throughout the economy, including petroleum and defense. NBC, one of the more mainstream media companies, is owned by General Electric, at one time the largest US (hence, world) defense contractor.
Disney just told its subsidiary Miramax not to distribute Michael Moore's latest movie, which has *soldiers* (not campus radicals) speaking critically of Bush. I'm no fan of Michael Moore, BTW -- and not only because he's for gun control. He lies and misleads. But that's not among the reasons Disney gave for not distributing his film. "We ... didn't want to be in the middle of a politically-oriented film during an election year," according to Disney chief Eisner.
Yet, "Disney, through its various subsidiaries, is one of the largest distributors of political, often highly partisan media content in the country-- virtually all of it right-wing. Consider:
- Almost all of Disney's major talk radio stations-- WABC in New York, WMAL in D.C., WLS in Chicago, WBAP in Dallas/Ft. Worth and KSFO in San Francisco-- broadcast Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Indeed, WABC is considered the home station for both of these shows, which promote an unremitting Republican political agenda. (Disney's KABC in L.A. carries Hannity, but has Bill O'Reilly instead of Limbaugh.) Disney's news/talk stations are dominated by a variety of other partisan Republican hosts, both local and national, including Laura Ingraham, Larry Elder and Matt Drudge.
Disney's Family Channel carries Pat Robertson's 700 Club, which routinely equates Christianity with Republican causes. After the September 11 attacks, Robertson's guest Jerry Falwell (9/13/01) blamed the attacks on those who "make God mad": "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America." Robertson's response was, "I totally concur." It's hard to imagine that anything in Moore's film will be more controversial than that.
"Disney's ABC News prominently features John Stossel, who, though not explicitly partisan, advocates for a conservative philosophy in almost all his work: "It is my job to explain the beauties of the free market," he has explained (Oregonian, 10/26/94). No journalist is allowed to advocate for a balancing point of view on ABC's news programs.
"Given the considerable amount of right-wing material distributed by Disney, much of it openly promoting Republican candidates and issues, it's impossible to believe that Disney is preventing Miramax from distributing Fahrenheit 911 because, as a Disney executive told the New York Times (5/5/04), 'It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle.' Disney, in fact, makes a great deal of money off of highly charged partisan political battles, although it generally provides access to only one side of the war...."
http://www.fair.org/activism/disney-moore-update.html
"Rumsfeld received his slap on the wrist, not for the mistreatment of the prisoners, but for the mistreatment of the president, whose political handlers and spin doctors were caught off guard when CBS broadcast its first report on the Abu Ghraib torture last week.... The desire of the US ruling elite [is] to use Rumsfeld as a political lightning rod, and thus protect the Bush White House...
"The abuses at Abu Ghraib can be traced back in part to Rumsfeld’s frequent declarations, beginning with the treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan, that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that prisoners classified as illegal combatants 'do not have any rights'; that the military-run detention center in Guantanamo Bay was not subject to any oversight, either US or international...
"None of these statements, however, were expressions of Rumsfeld’s private opinions. They reflected the policy of the Bush administration, as set by Bush and Cheney. This policy applied not only to prisoners taken on the battlefield in Afghanistan, or in military raids in Baghdad and Fallujah, but to those detained within the United States itself in the Bush-declared 'war on terror.'"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/iraq-m07.shtml (Yes, it's a socialist website. So what? I'm not a socialist and the analysis has little to do with socialism. In fact, some here would argue against firing Rumsfeld for the very reason that the dehumanization of Iraqis was US policy, not incompetence on his part. Per the Reno discussion -- Rummy probably didn't order the abuse, but he certainly participated fully in government policies, self-righteous rhetoric, and defiance of international norms, all of which strongly encouraged it. But I agree that he should not be singled out -- he and Bush and many others in the administration should not only be impeached -- not only fired -- but tried, for war crimes.)
But back to the media...
My local paper's coverage of the issue today placed government spokesperson's statements up front, and at the very end, quoted both a Red Cross official and a presumably unauthorized (but named) US military officer as saying that reports of abuse had been given to high-ranking administration officials late last year. Credible allegations that the president LIED about a serious issue ... knew about the abuse for months, but ignored it, and is now lying about it and has picked his scapegoat ... buried in the inner pages by your "left-wing" media.
Some people see only what they want to see.