corrente

Everywhere you look, details of the newly-revealed identity of "Deep Throat" are splashed across the headlines. It's almost as though people were nostalgic for the days when reporters went underground and did difficult work to get to the bottom of government wrongdoing and malfeasance.

Oh, wait. That's still going on. It's just that nobody really seems to care anymore, which is why, I guess, the Boston Herald can come right out and claim on Bush's behalf that the Amnesty International report is a "lie".

While it's interesting that Felt has finally admitted to his part in the Watergate investigation, in an archival, anthropological way, it's not the story that needs to be pushing everything else off the front page. The big story is how complicit current news organizations have become in "catapulting the propaganda" (3rd paragraph up from the end of the speech.) Or in subtly re-shaping the concepts underlying how government works, as in CNN's curious spin on how Congress has an obligation to Bush not to honor the wishes of the people who put them in office. Irony? Irony doesn't begin to cover it.

(Thanks to Crooks and Liars for pointing out the last two examples.)