RateItAll: The Opinion Network

This is rather silly. How often do you see news outlets of any political stripe spontaneaously report things are simply going well? News reports usually cover some dramatic interruption to everyday life, which are very seldom good. It is the periods between the wars, natural disasters, political upheavals, virus outbreaks and the like when things slowly improve. When was the last time you saw "NEWS FLASH: Nothing spectacularly bad happened today!" or "SPECIAL UPDATE: Business as usual!"?

With some rare exceptions, that is true. Fortunately, intelligent Americans don't rely so much today on a politicized and twisted media, rather find more truthful and realistic reports on the internet.

I'll give this 2 stars, instead of 1, because there is some truth to it. The media, like everyone else, does have an agenda.

But when I hear people use this as a blanket defense to any and all criticism of the president, as I do all the time, it loses a lot of its effectiveness.

"Good things"? Like,a seesaw stock market,more bodybags with young Americans coming home from Iraq,$3.50 a Gallon Fuel,rampant uncontrolled border crossing,etc.? Oh,yeah-that's right...Exxon made record profits! Hoo-rayyyy!

It always tickles me to read the anti-liberal-media self-righteous recriminations from the far lefties on here. Like they believe that if you rattle off 3 or 4 examples of right-wing media (you forgot the Washington Times) it makes it all even, and journalistically ok. I could far exceed the 5,000 character limit with left-wing (just in the US) journalism sources, some actually familiar to you, but it's been done and what's the point?

This is not a valid excuse for the low approval ratings of the Bush Administration. I think they do a pretty good job of reporting on the policy blunders and inherent corruption of republican administrations. They should, that's what the country needs them to do. It's good for the country, overall.

They get into trouble when they jump into the pocket of a democrat administration and keep silent about the inevitable bad news when they find it, or soften the coverage.

Case in point: Dan Quayle (conservative) said some really dumb things that were trumped up (by the runaway press) into a label of stupid. Al Gore has said some really dumb things also. He's a hero to most in the media and most Americans would be hard-pressed to give an example of a dopey "Gore-ism" while Dan Quayles foibles are right on the tips of everyone's tongues. There's no real harm in that, unless you're trying to run for president. Gore, when he ran, was treated with respect and dignity. Quayle was laughed off the national stage. That's not the role they should be playing.

But, I like the job they're doing with the Bush Administration. They're a little too desperate to characterize mistakes as corruption and portraying conservatives as mean and selfish (actually, all politicians are mean and selfish).

Bush and "Big Time" Cheney have handled the press appropriately. They have stonewalled everything they could with mostly success. The press has whipped up a few non-stories ("outing" of a CIA agent, which didn't happen, Cheney"s shooting accident, Dubai ports deal, etc.) out of desperation performing a disservice to the American public. I just think they should be similarly rough on a democrat. They are not.

What liberal media? As far as I can tell, there's all sorts of media around that takes in all shades of the sociopolitical spectrum, so anyone can find what they want to read or hear. And if, by and large, it's so liberally biased, then why do conservatives trumpet the fact that Fox News is, or was, so successful- when it's essentially a 24 hour right wing to far right wing commercial? Mainstream, especially local and state news, is more likely to regard good news as look at that crazy cat the firefighters had to get out of the tree, or an 106 year old woman's amazing collection of jam jars or some b.s. like that anyway. And there isn't a lot of good news coming out of this administration. There just isn't. And as a generalization, news in and of itself, largely consists of deaths, murders, rising prices, scandals, and other negative issues to begin with.

Liberal media? Fox? NY Post? Wall-Street Journal? Talk-radio? People need to wake up to the fact that the 1960's have been over for a long, long time. More accurate, I think, is to refer to is as the "corporate media". Ideology doesn't drive the engine of the modern mass-media; money does. The fact of the matter is, Bush and Co. have pretty much gotten a free ride up until fairly recently. Instead of acting in the adversarial capacity for which it was designed in this country, the media has acted more as press agents for the administration. The only good news is that things are very belatedly starting to change somewhat, as more people die every week, as more money disappears down the black hole that is Iraq, and the Bush administration implodes...

What's 'good' that's happening? Check the stocks lately, kids? Check out those wonderful home prices that are oh-so-in-line with wages. Gotta love the cost of health care. Gotta love the war-that's-already-over (according to dubs) in Iraq. Gotta love an immigration platform that does nothing to secure our border and protect the wages and safety of the middle class. . .just because you think reality has a liberal slant doesn't make it so. . .

Lets re-define this. The media in general usually does not report on good news. Bad news and scandal get ratings. So it's best not to use the "liberal media" as a whipping boy for all of our troubles in Iraq. Sure, we can all hope that what we're seeing in Iraq is a nascent, healthy democracy, but the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that we're seeing the beginning of a highly fragmented governmental system fractured along religious, ethnic, and sectarian lines. Democracy is good, but the political institutions that come along with it have to supply freedom. Without freedom, democracy is worthless. At the rate this is going, a religious government along the lines of the Iranian republic ruled by religious figures will be the name of the game in Iraq. They have democracy in Iran too, but no political freedoms, the critical distinction in all of this. So, there may be some good news here and there, but broadly speaking, our goals to transform the Middle East have not turned out as planned.