http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=21457
Thursday, June 09
'Wanted: A few reporters with the guts to take on Bush'
By Randolph T. Holhut
DUMMERSTON, Vt. -
The frenzy over "Deep Throat" is fading.
The hosannas over the brief, shining moment in history when reporters
did their jobs and brought down a corrupt president are dying down.
Perhaps now, we can return to the present day and the multitude of
opportunities that exist for latter-day Woodwards and Bernsteins to
shine.
Granted, over the last three decades, corporate journalism has become
more timid and deferential to power.
But as criminally evil as Richard Nixon was, George W. Bush has him
beat.
And all it will take to end our current national nightmare is a few
good journalists who don't care what Karl Rove or Rush Limbaugh or
Bill O'Reilly thinks of them.
There have been so many misdeeds committed by the Bush administration
over the past four years, its hard to keep track of them all.
To me, it all goes back to Iraq.
The Bush administration's decision to invade that country under false
pretenses has tarnished America's reputation and has trapped U.S.
forces in a Vietnam-style quagmire for years to come.
They wanted this war.
They wanted it well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
We now even have the proof - the "Downing Street Memo" leaked to the
Times of London a few weeks ago.
The memo, from MI-6 head Richard Dearlove, (the British equivalent of
CIA director), was from a meeting with the Bush administration in July
2002.
According to Dearlove, the Bush administration was determined to
attack Iraq even though there was no evidence of weapons of mass
destruction, no evidence of links to foreign terrorists and no
evidence that Iraq posed a direct or indirect threat to the United
States.
"Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy," according
to Dearlove's memo.
In other words, they were being fabricated to fit the Bush
administration's desire to invade Iraq.
Everything the Bush administration said in the months before the
invasion was a lie - the tales of aluminum tubes destined for missile
production, mobile chemical weapons labs, importation of uranium from
Niger, unmanned drone planes to deliver biological weapons.
Every word of it.
That the White House was lying was evident in the summer and fall of
2002.
But few in Congress wanted to believe that the Bush administration
would deliberately lie to Congress and the American people to gin up
an unneeded, unnecessary war.
Congress fell into line and voted to give President Bush the authority
to invade Iraq.
Nearly 1,700 American soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians
are now dead because of these lies.
As bad as the crimes committed by the Nixon administration during
Watergate were, they pale beside the bigger crime of duping a nation
into going to war.
That's only the start.
Add the billions earmarked for reconstruction in Iraq that have been
squandered by private contractors with cozy ties to the Bush
administration.
Add the lack of any sort of post-war reconstruction plan.
Add the lack of manpower to ensure even a rudimentary level of
security.
And top it all off with the torture and occasional killing of Iraqi
prisoners in U.S. custody.
This too, is all well documented and sitting in public view.
There's no need for a Deep Throat, just someone who can connect the
dots and say that President Bush and his administration are guilty of
crimes against the Constitution - crimes so numerous and so great that
impeachment proceedings should begin immediately.
Unfortunately, I know how remote the chances are of impeachment
proceedings taking place.
With Republicans in control of Congress and the judiciary, the sort of
Congressional hearings that we saw during Watergate will not happen.
So it is up to the court of public opinion to render a verdict on the
Bush administration.
I realize the obstacles to telling the truth.
I know the coziness of today's journalists with the people they cover.
I know the devil's bargain they have made, trading access for the
right to have their sources control what they report.
In today's Washington, a reporter without access is a dead reporter
walking.
But the truth will not be found at a White House press briefing.
It will not appear in a handout from a government agency.
And just because some government official issues a denial doesn't
necessarily mean the story is over.
It's going to take reporters who aren't afraid of sacrificing their
insider status.
Great reporters, guys like George Seldes and I.F. Stone, didn't go to
press conferences or hang out at the White House.
They dug into official documents and pieced together the facts from
what was sitting around in plain sight.
As for status, Seymour Hersh may not get any invitations to write for
The New York Times or The Washington Post.
He has to settle for writing for The New Yorker, getting big book
contracts and lecturing around the country.
If that's being a pariah, it's not a bad deal.
Granted, Hersh is doing well.
Gary Webb wasn't as fortunate.
He dared to take on the CIA and saw his career destroyed as a result.
But even the gods can't change history.
Webb is gone, but his reporting stands the test of time.
It's going to take a print or broadcast media outlet brave enough not
to care what the right-wingers say.
Let the Limbaughs and O'Reillys and Hannitys and Coulters foam at the
mouth.
The truth will be enough to expose them as the power whores they
really are.
The truth is indisputable.
In pursuit of a neo-conservative dream of an American-controlled
empire in the Middle East, the United States invaded Iraq.
There was no justification for such an invasion, but the Bush
administration went ahead with its plans and lied every step of the
way to convince the nation that war was necessary.
In conjuring up a war out of thin air, the Bush administration
violated not only the Constitution, but international law as well.
Even if impeachment is impossible, the Bush administration must be
held accountable for this illegal and immoral war.
Only the press, aided by an informed and aroused citizenry, can do
this.
It won't bring back the dead, but it might restore our national
reputation and extricate our forces from an unwinnable war.
So who wants to be the next Woodward and Bernstein?
Who wants to be the next Ben Bradlee?
Who wants to be the next Deep Throat?
Who wants to reclaim the truth and our nation's honor from the hands
of scheming men?
A nation is waiting for a few good men and women who aren't afraid to
step forward and accept this challenge.
I still have faith that they are out there.
____________________________________________________________
Harry
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