Bush: Give Me Some Credit

In another sign that the GOP has completely lost their minds, George W. Bush is asking for partial credit for getting Osama bin Laden: Washington Monthly. Not that I ever considered Bush completely in touch with reality, but there is little evidence that our years in Afghanistan and Iraq under his control had much to do with the locating and killing of bin Laden in Pakistan. What our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq did assist with is the ballooning deficit. Of course, media coverage of the debt crisis rarely mentions this $10 trillion failure. 

This brings me to the related second topic today, which is the media's slanted coverage of Obama since his election. While I agree partially with Republicans that the media certainly took a liking to the candidate as he ascended to the nomination (forgoing for a moment the imbroglio over Wright), he has suffered a media scrutiny and almost Catch-22 coverage (bipartisanship calls contradicted by critique for trying to compromise with the party of no) ever since. This continued with his jobs bill speech on Thursday. The New York Times spoke with employers who claimed the bill will do little to spurn hiring: NYT Article, failing to acknowledge that even those corporations with record profits are laying off workers. Others have immediately embraced the GOP claims that we must first deal with the deficit. 

The tendency in the media to undermine Obama claims almost immediately and tacitly embrace conservative rhetoric, even when the facts contradict it, appears to have an effect on a public that wants change but can't seem to agree on what that change should be or where it should come from. The same media that is essentially "amusing us to death," appears also to be stupifying us to death with coverage that is both uncritical and essentially cynical. I suppose this is what we get for allowing five companies to rule our airwaves.

A final note for today: the GOP is again calling for the unemployed to be drug tested before they receive their benefits: Digbysblog. While I'm sure many will openly embrace this call, I think a similar requirement should be instituted for our elected officials -- together with a test on basic economic knowledge, ethics and any understanding of science or the surrounding world. Call me crazy, but maybe it's time to put the insane back in asylums and let sanity rule the day.