coffee tea or PUS, sunday afternoon media beatdown

Susan has an extremely disturbing tale of intrigue, weaving fascinating characters, including, genetically-engineered Bovine Growth Hormone, investigative repoters, Fox Tampa, and Monsanto. Oh, and it just keeps on, keepin on, Pus in Your MILK.

She also puts a boot up the collective ass of corporate media whoredom.

A LETTER TO THE MEDIA

Dear Media,

Nothing cheers me up quite so much these days as reminding myself I am no longer an official member of The Media. Instead, I am reduced to the lowly ranks of the Non-Journalist Bloggers, where I may languish forever without becoming an invited guest on the Sunday talk shows, and thus prevented from ever gazing upon the face of God.

For the past few days, I've listened to the press corps congratulating themselves on actually being slightly, perhaps even measurably less obsequious to the Bush campaign. And for that, I congratulate you, too. (Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness, as it were.)

I do understand why you're finally doing this. The polls show an opening: You're mad at how easily the Bushies pushed you around for the past three and a half years, and now you've rewritten the script. Now is the time when the Newly Principled Independent Media (right on cue) rise as if one and bite the very hands that have thrown them a steady diet of leaked largesse.

Atrios picks up his 32 ounces and 36 inches of Louisville Slugger.......

Things The Media Needs to Explain

Why are the Swift Boat Liars and Move On "two sides of the same coin." Move On is an established organization which has been around for years and which has a very large small donor base (and, a few large donors as well). Swift Boat Liars came into being just recently to lie about John Kerry's record.

And we must praise when praise is due, an Editorial at the Boston Globe gets it just about right. This is also over at the daily KOS.

Big lies for Bush

August 22, 2004

IMAGINE IF supporters of Bill Clinton had tried in 1996 to besmirch the military record of his opponent, Bob Dole. After all, Dole was given a Purple Heart for a leg scratch probably caused, according to one biographer, when a hand grenade thrown by one of his own men bounced off a tree. And while the serious injuries Dole sustained later surely came from German fire, did the episode demonstrate heroism on Dole's part or a reckless move that ended up killing his radioman and endangering the sergeant who dragged Dole off the field?

The truth, according to many accounts, is that Dole fought with exceptional bravery and deserves the nation's gratitude. No one in 1996 questioned that record. Any such attack on behalf of Clinton, an admitted Vietnam draft dodger, would have been preposterous.

Yet amazingly, something quite similar is happening today as supporters of President Bush attack the Vietnam record of Senator John Kerry.

The situations are not completely parallel. Bush was not a draft dodger, but he certainly was a Vietnam avoider, having joined the Texas Air National Guard rather than serving in the regular military.

Kerry, on the other hand, may have done more than Dole to qualify as a genuine war hero. Although his tour in Vietnam was short, on at least two occasions he acted decisively and with great daring in combat, saving at least one man's life and earning both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. That's not our account or Kerry's; it is drawn from eyewitnesses and the military citations themselves.

Concerning the opening sentance, can anyone who is not in fact batshit insane honestly imagine the pile up that would result if Clinton had ever pulled any of the crap that Bush gets away with, on a daily freaking basis.