The Nattering Nabob

From the Denver Post:

Did the news media go along for the ride?

Now that every columnist in the country has opined about "Fahrenheit 9/11's" portrayal of the Bush administration, I would like to see at least one editorial about its secondary target: the media. The film's most effective tactic is the use of self-incriminating archival footage - such as clips of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice declaring Iraq militarily impotent before September 2001. But if news outlets had such footage, why didn't they vehemently challenge our leaders on the glaring discrepancies between these and later assertions before we launched a pre-emptive war? Either the media has been derelict in its constitutional duty as guardian of the public's trust or it is fully complicit in the Bush administration's misinformation campaign. Love or hate it, the movie's stunning box-office numbers are representative of just how disillusioned the public is with mainstream news' increasingly disreputable homogeneousness.

Mark Schiff, Denver