Scott McClellan's book raising plenty of press issues

Scott McClellan's book is touching off lots and lots of important issues, and at least for that, he's to be applauded (cue the cliché Better late than never). One of the big issues that has received a great deal of coverage from this past week from his book is the press' coverage of the Bush administration leading up to and during the War in Iraq.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but thE four-minute video clip above is one of the most outrageous I've seen during these last eight years. I don't mean to interject some Keith Olbermann hyperbole here - I don't write a sentence like that lightly. But, there are some pretty serious assertions brought up in this piece, specifically by Couric, where she says (I'm paraphrasing) that someone from the Bush administration called to complain that he didn't like the tone of the interview questions during the run-up to the war. According to Couric, she said, "well, tough," and the unidentified person said that access would be restricted when the war began. In one word: OUTRAGEOUS.

My thought when I heard Couric say this was, "Why are we only hearing about this now?" Scott McClellan is taking lots of heat (and rightfully so) for not standing up and saying something when he saw and heard many of the allegations discussed in his book. Fair enough. But, what about the press? As best as I can remember, save for a few isolated incidents where journalists were trying to make names for themselves by asking very probing questions, I don't remember any prominent anchor or reporter raising the issue that Couric asserts above.

There are many reasons and root causes for the War in Iraq, and plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the political aisle (but more on the GOP side, without a doubt), but the press is complicit, too. Hopefully McClellan book brings more of these facts to light, and lots of analysis about how our supposed free press failed America, Iraq, and quite frankly, the rest of the world, too.

As for Charlie Gibson, he's either mixing medications, or he slipped and bumped his head. "All of the questions were being asked," Charlie? C'mon - I'm not even going to dignify that remark with any sort of response, other than to say that with that attitude, it's little wonder why the ratings of network news have been free falling for years.

Tom Brokaw joined the "Who, us?!?" chorus during an interview the other night on the broadcast he used to host, NBC Nightly News...

This is a pretty disgusting interview given by a once respected journalist news anchor. (People who sit behind desks and read off of teleprompters aren't journalists in the traditional term, in my book.) "All wars are based on propaganda," Tom? Wow, I'll file that one away. Brokaw has a firm grasp of the obvious, but the big elephant in the room when he's talking about war propaganda is that the press is under NO responsibility to disseminate that propaganda, which our corporate media did so willingly before and during the war (& actually, it's continuing to do to this day).

I got pretty angry watching Brokaw blamestorming all sorts of individuals and groups who were responsible for the war. It's too bad that even after he's given up the NBC anchor desk, he couldn't be open and honest about his network's (as well as the press') shortcomings on covering the war. Instead, we just get more spin and obfuscations. Who knows - with this ability to banter & bullshit, maybe we're looking at Bush's next press secretary. As Crooks & Liars' John Amato so succinctly pointed out the other day, members of Congress & others certainly bear some blame in this war, but members of Congress aren't responsible for the press' coverage of this war.

Brokaw is correct in bringing up the context of the time following 9/11, and that's important. But, it doesn't explain away all of the cozy press coverage that the Bush administration received on the eve of war. There was strong pressure in most aspects of American society, not just from this administration, to "go along" and "support the president." I experienced this a great deal in my own life following 9/11, when I was critical of Bush on some occasions - some of my friends and family were livid at me for having the temerity to question Bush's motives & conduct. I had three words for all of them - Too freakin' bad. Anyway, the context and political climate do explain away a small part of the press coverage before & during our invasion of Iraq, but it doesn't even come close to explaining away everything.

Color the above video clips as the 8,422,900th reason to not trust our corporate media, and to get your news and commentary from multiple sources.