December 01, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


GEORGE WILL'S SLEAZY ETHICS

Columnist and TV pundit George Will has been a major media presence for decades. You can count on Will to put a shinier gloss on truly repulsive policies. Will should not be accorded the title "journalist" because he has demonstrated he has absolutely no ethics. His latest outrage is to doctor quotes to make George W. Bush, who was acting arrogant and like a creep once again, look like a good guy in an encounter with Senator-elect Jim Webb. Will coached Ronald Reagan years ago and then went on television posing as an objective observer about Reagan's debate with President Carter. This column by R. J. Eskow is at news.yahoo.com:

The Carter/Reagan debate, and Will's role in it, changed journalism forever. Will went on national television that year to comment live and "objectively" on
Ronald Reagan's debate performance - without disclosing that he was working for the Reagan campaign and had helped Reagan prepare for that very debate - using stolen property.

This unethical behavior set a new low for journalistic ethics. What was equally ground-breaking was the fact that, once his behavior was made public, he paid absolutely no professional price for it. No censure, no widespread criticism, no loss of employment.

GINGRICH VS. THE CONSTITUTION

I remember when conservatives took high umbrage about any interpretation of the Constitution that wasn't "strict constructionist." Now right-wingers can't wait to dismember the Constitution. The Bush administration has attacked civil liberties at every level. Serial adulterer and former Speaker Newt Gingrich has suggested that we have to curtail freedom of speech because of the "war on terror." The First Amendment really is inconvenient for right-wingers. Those terrible clauses about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion give them the vapors. This article by Cenk Uygur is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Newt Gingrich started the attack against the US constitution in the beginning of the week. He launched operation shock and awe by striking against one of the most cherished principles of this country - the freedom of speech. It worked, because after all we've been through in the last six years, I was still shocked by this.

The first amendment! I am not sure I can name something more sacred to the principles of America.

Then Dennis Prager came in and delivered the second blow to the first amendment (if you don't know him, don't worry, you're not alone; he is a buffoonish conservative talk show host who has made a cheap living desperately trying to copy Rush Limbaugh his whole life). Prager went after the establishment clause. He argued that every member of Congress should show their allegiance to the Bible in order to be allowed into Congress. The first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." How much clearer did they have to be?