The Enablers
Why, you might ask, would a site be called Comedian for President? Am I advocating that a comedian run for President? Not exactly. However, in view of the laughable way in which this administration runs its policy, both domestic and foreign, I hardly think many people could do a more incompetent job. In fact, I think comedians perform a much higher civic duty than most correspondents working for the news media.
It seems that today we are living in an almost Orwellian state. We have a Washington Press Corps that instead of being in an adversarial position of checks and balances with the power elite, it is in an enabler for the policies of the Bush Administration and the future administrations to follow. Is it not unbelievable, that not only is some of the most revealing aspects and hypocrisy of government officials being exposed nightly at Comedy Central, not on the evening news? That some of the most unscripted and probing questions come from comedians like Bill Maher, and Jon Stewart, not people like Brian Williams, Katie Couric, or Charles Gibson, is quite a sad state of affairs. It is more than sad, it’s frightening. We have correspondents and journalists on TV like Tim Russert, being just one for the moment, who has many people believing that he asks these tough questions. He does not! He follows a script. A script that his guests know, what is going to be asked beforehand. In journalism, unlike driving a car, predictability is a not a virtue. How is this allowed to happen?
The Collusion of the Press and the Presidency
There are many reasons for this. The first, and in my view, the most important is “access”. Check out the President when he is about to call out to someone to ask a question during a press conference. He’s invariably looking down in front of him on a sheet of paper as to who is next on his list. Who he calls out is already predetermined by his White House staff. This is insane. The President chooses who he calls on and the Media doesn’t make this an issue of it. No president should be able to choose as to who is allowed to ask him a question. That should be determined by some sort of pool or luck of the draw. When you’re sitting in the front row at the White House, and you are called by the President of the United States during a press conference to ask a question, you had better not ask a question that’s not on the script or confrontational. Just ask Helen Thomas, who was vanquished to the back of the room for having had the temerity to ask some uncomfortable questions of both the President and Press Secretary. Somehow, I don’t think she gets called very much anymore. It does not help when the Fox Noise Channel is undermining her as senile and unpatriotic. And that is one part of the key. Correspondents and reporters, especially for the television media, refuse to ask probing questions for fear of being perceived as unpatriotic or disrespectful to this administration. But even more importantly, it’s about access. It’s about Katie Couric having some senior administration official on the evening news, or even the President. She knows, and they all know, that they won’t do her show again if she hammers them with tough questions and follow-up questions. During press conferences, none of the correspondent’s follow-up on each other’s questions, thereby squeezing public officials and giving them very little wiggle room. They refuse to do that because they want their question featured on the evening broadcast. So you see how the game is played, and why you the public, gets screwed, not just by our government officials but by people that should be holding government officials somewhat honest. The Washington Press Corps sees itself as an extension of the power elite, not as an adversary. If you doubt that, check out the Correspondents Dinner, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879,where the people who should be informing the public about the state of our country, is instead laughing at the President’s jokes.
Laughing, as we are entering the fifth year of this fiasco called the Iraq war. Laughing, as a Cindy Sheehan looses her son and the President of the United States refuses to meet with her. Laughing, as according to The New York Times, on average 100 people are killed every day in Iraq. Four million people have fled their homes. Almost 2,000,000 refugees are fleeing Iraq, to the point that Saudi Arabia is building a $7 billion border fence. Do you remember the last time someone in the Press Corps asked Mr. Bush one question on any of these matters?
It’s only business
That line just doesn’t apply to the Godfather. It applies to the news media. Most, if not all, of the major news organizations are owned by conglomerates and corporations. These huge companies, have invariably, business interests in front of congressional committees all of the time. Mergers and acquisitions that have to be approved by government officials. If you have journalists that are vigorously questioning or attacking government policy, working at one of these corporations, it isn’t too hard to imagine the tenuous position that a corporation might find itself. The perverse problem is that the virtues of reporters to be aggressive and confrontational, do not lend themselves to TV news organizations that want access and the least amount of controversy. They want, what we all want, a hefty return on our investments. Katie Couric, at a $1,000,000 a month to read a teleprompter. Get along and don’t rock the boat.
The Dissenters
