Bill Ayers speaks out! An In These Times exclusive.

In These Times

PrintDiscuss
Views » July 20, 2006

Thank You, Mr. Bush

Bush administration tries to render the media impotent

By Terry J. Allen

Feeling grateful to the Bush administration is a rare experience. But sometimes the White House can do something right, even if for the wrong reasons.

The administration’s gift to the nation was to openly attack journalists. “[M]ore than any other White House in history, Bush’s has tried to starve, mock, weaken, bypass, devalue, intimidate, and deceive the press,” David Remnick recently wrote in The New Yorker.

That certainly wasn’t the president’s attitude while Judith Miller was transcribing Rumsfeld’s fantasy life, or when the press was regurgitating the administration’s conflation of the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein’s domestic crimes, or “balancing” coverage of global warming by citing industry flacks alongside peer-reviewed studies.

Now with Bush’s failure as palpable as a crowbar to the kneecap, the media are regularly reporting on the dismal state of the war, recognizing global warming as fact, outing NSA surveillance and interviewing former prisoners from America’s far-flung gulags. Bush has responded with open antagonism.

It’s about time. The press and those in power are not allies, buddies or teammates—not even in the war on terror. If their interests sometimes coincide, their roles do not. They are—they should always be—adversaries, and if there is not tension, profound distrust and occasional loathing on both sides of the equation, the press is not doing its job.

Unfortunately, most of the media have reacted to Bush’s attacks with great rhetorical waves of self-defense, often countering with how much information they actually do withhold on government request to “protect” national security. Writing about decisions to “withhold information of significance,” New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller notes: “We have sometimes done so, holding stories or editing out details that could serve those hostile to the U.S. But we need a compelling reason to do so.” The government’s appeal to national security was apparently sufficiently compelling to make the Times withhold its story on potentially unconstitutional, warrantless NSA surveillance for a year. The investigation was eventually published after Bush’s re-election.

“The difference between burlesque and the newspapers,” noted muckraker I.F. Stone, “is that the former never pretended to be performing a public service by exposure.” When journalists expose government secrets and crimes, they are simply doing their jobs. They do not need to spill endless ink justifying that role in a democracy—especially when there is no evidence that the disclosures put anything at risk but the president’s poll numbers.

But lack of evidence never stopped the Bush administration. In a classic case of misdirection, a president who undermined national security by illegally taking this country to war, by condoning torture, by violating the Constitution and by destroying the world’s goodwill is attacking the New York Times for “put[ting] our citizens at risk.”

“We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America,” said Bush about media disclosure of his banking surveillance program, “and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America.” Vice President Cheney sang counterpoint with: “The New York Times has now made it more difficult for us to prevent attacks in the future.”

The good news is that whether reporters and editors like it or not, the administration’s attacks on the press clarify that in a democracy, journalists are not friendly sparring partners for those in power. They are natural enemies, and when they do their job, they risk unreturned phone calls, banishment from the elite dinner tables of Georgetown, public harassment and even jail.

That is the signal the Bush administration just sent the insufficiently cooperative media. Thank you, Mr. President.

Terry J. Allen, an In These Times senior editor, has written the magazine's monthly investigative health and science column since 2005.

More information about Terry J. Allen

  • subscribe to print magazine

  • Reader Comments

    “not even in the war on terror”

    The way I spot an author of worth vs. a worthless flak is in their take on Bush’s “war on terror.”

    A useless pundit merely repeats the phrase, as in the above, “not even in the war on terror...”

    A serious thinker does not regurgitate the official myths without qualification.  If I were to even acknowledge the presumed existence of this alleged “war on terror,” it would certainly be pointed out as a novelty concept, not something I subscribe to, myself, and wholly suspect and in dispute as a legitimate terminology.

    Mr. Allen, who believes government assistance of the 9-11 attacks has no legitimate evidence to support it, and so must be on “faith,” seems to swallow the Bush mythology about a “war on terror” without thought, without qualification, and without any real investigation.

    I’d rather read professor Chossudovsky’s grocery lists than any more of Allen’s limited hangout claptrap:

    ‘Al-Qaeda is a U.S.-sponsored Intelligence Asset used to Justify War in the Middle East: Interview with Michel Chossudovsky
    The Use of 9/11 as a Pretext to Wage War

    9/11: Ignorance is Strength?

    Posted by johndoraemi on Jul 20, 2006 at 6:40 PM

    JOHN

    In a classic case of misdirection, a president who undermined national security by illegally taking this country to war, by condoning torture, by violating the Constitution and by destroying the world’s goodwill is attacking the New York Times for “put[ting] our citizens at risk.”

    I too would have prefered to see “"""""" war on terror “""""" !

    “Seems to swallow” .......?  think ?

    She has written 14 articles here. The first 12 I agreed with.
    No 13 wa 911faith, and now this .

    On 911Faith , we have discussed various interpretations of this “limited hangout “ stuff ------ but , whatever the article, at least it provides a forum for a real debate ?

    more later, must work.....

    Posted by frog on Jul 21, 2006 at 1:38 AM

    Ms Allen,

    Why don’t you just admit that there is no War On Terror, just a War Of Terror and it is being perpetrated by the NeoCon Corporatocracy beginning with their opening act on 9/11.

    The ranting Gryphon speaks.

    Posted by Rabbit on Jul 21, 2006 at 5:35 AM

    It seems that the point of this article has been lost. “War on Terror”, War of Terror”, War on Terrorism”.....This article is not about a “War on Terminolgy”, it’s about the obvious break down of the free press. I agree with Ms. Allen’s point of view. The members of the press have, for the most part, done their master’s bidding and they have still been reprimanded for it. Maybe this new attack by the Bushies will be the wake up call and the good, swift kick in the pants the media need to start doing their job again.

    Posted by TakeInAPlay on Jul 24, 2006 at 4:06 PM

    Well Rabbit, at least you know Terry isn’t a “right winger” now.  I think I told you so. 

    Whatever disagreements she may have with the decision to go to Iraq, and the contention that the NYT has needlessly and gleefully exposed classified information regarding our efforts to track and identify terrorist activites, I doubt she agrees with your fringe view.

    I doubt she agrees with Michael Moore when he says: “There is no terrorist threat.”

    Terry?

    No politician in this country is going to get elected to any national office on that sort of stance on national security.  I doubt in yours either.

    Posted by Natalie on Jul 24, 2006 at 9:24 PM

  • extended discussion >>>Continued...

    Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 9 posts.

Appeared in the August 2006 Issue
Also by Terry J. Allen
IN THESE TIMES COMMUNITY MEMBERS

Popularity

In These Times is published in Chicago. We’ve been around since 1976, fighting for workers’ rights, corporate accountability and progressive government. In other words, a better world. more

Copyright © 2008 In These Times