The other day, on the first day of his show trial, Saddam Hussein announced that he was still the President of Iraq. "He seems to be living in his own version of reality," sniffed the talking heads of the Corporate Mainstream Media.
Interesting they should mention that.
Scroll down the list of blog items here at HuffPo and you'll see one world. But glance on over at the dinosaurs of the Corporate Mainstream Media and by and large you'll see a completely different world. It's been that way for some time in America. Two competing and polar opposite "realities".
I've often said over the last many months that either "we" are out of our minds, or "they" are. But most decidedly, one of us is completely fucking loony and wholly out of touch with reality.
Some of "us" received some validation that it wasn't "we" who were insane last June when Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel said what all of "us" have been thinking for quite a while. He said, out loud, "the White House is completely disconnected from reality".
I knew it! I knew it wasn't "us"!
Not that Hagel's statement ended up changing much of anything.
The Corporate Mainstream Media didn't blink. Not for a minute. They barely noticed. Instead, they maddeningly continued "their" steady stream of stuff that looks and sounds a whole lot like "news" but actually isn't.
If you turned on the tube you would, by and large, see little but "their" version of "reality." Not "ours." Not those crazy Leftwing Loons over at HuffPo (John Fund excepted. Oh, well, I guess every version of reality needs a token anti-American, democracy-hater. But, I digress...)
Then in July, David Gergen, Republican advisor to to four American Presidents was intellectually honest enough to ask The Question: "What did the President know and when did he know it?" On ABC's This Week of all places! Out loud!
Well that would change everything! Unless, of course, you are the Corporate Mainstream Media and the really really big "news" in your "reality" concerned a teen-aged blonde female who unfortunately decided upon Aruba for her Spring Vacation.
But, in case they didn't hear him the first time, last week, Gergen did it again! He said -- out loud -- on CNN, "the wheels are coming off" this administration! But apparently it was just another one of those unfortunate rare moments when "our" reality accidentally seeped into "theirs". Nobody cared. Because the media didn't. Back here on HuffPo, Norm Ornstein has gone so far as to suggest who might replace both Cheney AND Bush in the possible upcoming "collapse of governance in Washington!"
But has anything changed in the Corporate Mainstream Media yet? Stunningly, not much. "Their" reality still wins the air war. The Bushies are still all smiles and even Tom DeLay managed to take the greatest picture of his life last week. (These guys are very good at "their" version of reality). Thanks to the media's willingness to play along, it has all been very effective and -- ultimately -- very damaging.
The Mainstream Corporate Media has almost entirely bought into the Administration's version hook, line, and sinker for at least the last four years. The top headlines on almost every network and cable news all still look a whole lot like Tom DeLay smiling: Nothing to worry about here folks! But the answer to which of America's two "realities" is actually the reality, may soon be upon us. While every network, every cable news channel, and almost every carbon-based newspaper, continues to help "them" convince America that everything's fine, America might very well see the Vice-President of the United States resign from his office within a week.
If that should happen, as suddenly as it might, the American public will, by and large, have not a clue about what just happened or why.
When "they" try and resurrect themselves from what "they" have become; when America is told by "them" that "pure partisanship" was the reason for all of this; when America is told that this is the "criminalization of politics"; when America is told that "the Left" is attempting to do the exact same thing to George W. Bush and Bill Frist and poor smiling Tom DeLay...well, it won't be a tough sell. America won't know much better nor have much reason to doubt "them".
Bottom line, "we" have been right all along. "They" have been wrong all along. On all of the above. And a few two-years too-late stories from NY Times and the occasional scoop by WaPo doesn't cut it. Sorry. too late, boys. They, along with the rest of their corporate brethren have been out to lunch for years during one of the most troubling times in American history. When we needed them most, they were nowhere to be found. The blogs told this story to those of "us" who gave a damn.
If this were 1998 and Al Gore was facing the very real possibility of being forced to resign the Vice-Presidency in the next week or so, do you suppose Fox "News" or even CNN or MSNBC would be going wall-to-wall with the murder of the wife of some attorney in California? Would the NY Times' David Brooks say on ABC's This Week -- as he said today about TreasonGate -- that it's "not a politically important story"?
Yes, "we're" in much more trouble than you think. But at least "we" live in reality. I wish I was able to take more comfort from that...