The Media Are The Menace

The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel:

As Glenn Greenwald rightly points out in a recent post from his Unclaimed Territory blog, media coverage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent trip to Syria can fairly be labeled "hysteria-driven."

Taking its cues from those who should be totally discredited, and set out to pasture for misleading us into this disastrous war, major media outlets like Meet the Press, (April 8) CNN and The Washington Post ("Pratfall in Damascus," April 5) have lambasted Pelosi for her "irresponsible" trip and for her "incompetence"--instead of suggesting that maybe we have a sane political leader who, at long last, understands that we need to maintain dialogue even with those we see as our enemies or "foes."

It's to be expected that the rightwing Noise Machine would snap into action--its chieftains Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh baying, scraping and bowing to give a platform to the discredited Vice-President--who had the staggering chutzpah to chide Pelosi for her "bad behavior" in making the trip. (Don't ignore the sexism in that remark--or in much of the media coverage.) Those who would listen to a man who condoned torture accusing Speaker Pelosi of bad behavior are disgraceful mouthpieces for the Bush Administration's vilification campaigns.

Go read.