Broder's was far from a worthless contribution to the health care debate, but Frank Rich of the New York Times made a really marvelous, worthwhile contribution to understanding America and the Iraq War over the past few years. As a DailyKos writer points out, Rich uses links properly. Most traditional reporters don't use links at all.
Rich clearly consulted a wide variety of sources in making his latest report. As a firedoglake writer points out, Rich's record is far from perfect and the traditional media in general engaged far more in active collaboration than it did in just negligent looking-the-other-way.
I did think the following passage was especially worthy of note:
Call me cynical, but when Laura Bush spoke up last week about the human rights atrocities in Burma, it seemed less an act of selfless humanitarianism than another administration maneuver to change the subject from its own abuses. As Mrs. Bush spoke, two women, both Armenian Christians, were gunned down in Baghdad by contractors underwritten by American taxpayers. On this matter, the White House has been silent. That incident followed the Sept. 16 massacre in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where 17 Iraqis were killed by security forces from Blackwater USA, which had already been implicated in nearly 200 other shooting incidents since 2005. There has been no accountability.
As somebody pointed out a few years ago, the Bush Administration's rhetoric is just fine. Nothing wrong with their rhetoric at all. It's when their rhetoric collides with reality that we get problems.
So can we fire David Broder from his position as "Dean of the Press Corps" and promote Frank Rich to his place? Can we? Pretty please?
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