Prayer and Probability

Variations On A Theme
Devolution Of The Media

Earlier today I wrote a piece on the evolution of the corporate media. Though I alluded to the fact I did not openly state that it is often more a process of devolution than evolution. Let me correct that now. The reason I feel compelled to set the matter the straight is that I read a column, “A lie for a just cause,” by Jonah Goldberg in the LA Times soon after I entered my blog. It is part of the right-wing extremists attempt to rewrite history in order to protect and defend George W. Bush. It is a piece of intellectual and historical drivel.

Mr. Goldberg starts by saying President Bush really didn’t lie about the reasons behind the Bush-Iraq War. Then he goes on to say that even if he did lie it doesn’t mean anything. After that he really gets convoluted and off-the-wall. He tries to make a comparison between Word War II and the Bush War. He says FDR lied us into WW II. He must have temporarily forgotten about Pearl Harbor but it does come to his mind shortly thereafter when he accuses FDR of provoking the attack by sending a single ship into Japanese waters on December 4th. In Mr. Goldberg’s defense it is quite probable that he does not know that Japanese plans for the attack were drawn up before November 5th. But then the Busheviks have never let the facts stand in the way of good yarn.

For a lie to seem credible it helps to a have smidgen of truth in it. This Mr. Goldberg supplies when he says “The Bush Doctrine is not chiefly about WMD and never was.” How true, it has always been about oil and money. But then he tries to slip the big lie in when he says, “Like FDR's vision, it balances democracy, security and morality.” I guess he decided to allow FDR back into his (Goldberg’s) good graces. He concludes his work of fiction by saying Mr. Bush will go down in history as a great president. All I can say is if history judges Bush to be a great president then the revisionists will have won and the world will not be a very nice place for most of those who are here.

This was Jonah’s first regular column for the Times. He is part of Jeff Johnson’s, the Times publisher, purge to turn the paper into another reactionary rag. He’s off to good start. A little history of Jonah, he is the son of Lucianne Goldberg, of Linda Tripp fame. She is the one who had Tripp tape the conversations with Monica Lewinsky. Long before that she was in the cadre of dirty tricksters employed by the far right to wreck the Democrat’s chances in the 1972 elections.

Jonah began his journalism career by doing commentary on the Lewinsky tapes and being in the forefront of the attacks on Bill Clinton. He says he originally wanted to be a fiction writer. I’m sure his mother is proud that he has reached that goal.

The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To Make.