I just wanted to point you to two great editorials in the New York Times today and yesterday.
First, check out yesterday's "Looking at America", which argues strongly that the Bush Administration has disgraced America by allowing and even encouraging things like torture, extraordinary rendition, abuses by Blackwater and other "mercenaries" in Iraq, etc.
Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America's position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America's global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times.
The bottom line is that in 2008, we must choose someone for president who has "the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably." Only after we get such a president will we "see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America" when we "look in the mirror as a nation."
Next, read "The One Environmental Issue", which urges every 2008 presidential candidate -- NOT just the Democrats and John McCain -- to offer "an honest accounting" and a serious plan to tackle climate change, the "overriding environmental issue of these time." The editorial also takes the media to task for failing to ask candidates about this issue, arguably the #1 threat to the planet and to humanity of the early 21st century. How can it be, by the way, that bloggers understand this but it's too mentally challenging for the corporate media?
They have maintained no reserve. They are shameless and as yet unfettered by the Constitutional powers designed to rein them in.
Merry New Year.
1) The media in general has an absolutely abysmal grasp of science. Way back in the '60s, writer C.P. Snow talked about "the two cultures" of science vs. the humanities, and about how those who people are trained in one know or care little about the other. Most journalists are liberal arts folks who couldn't tell you the chemical composition of water. And they treat scientifically-based issues as something to be confined to the most obscure, egghead section of the paper, or for discussion by some dull professor after the sports segment on the news.
2) The journalistic culture places such a premium on balance that they frankly don't know how to deal with an overwhelming, one-sided truth staring them in the face. They feel that they have to devote equal time to the guy from the right-wing think tank getting paid megabucks by big oil companies as they do to thousands of scientists who have devoted lifetimes of work to studying the climate.
We have to keep the pressure up on the media, and figure out how to communicate on this issue in a way they can understand, because we need them to tackle this monumental problem.