Media Outrage Against Bush/Cheney: Perpetually Turned Up To 11

Daniel Henninger seems to nail it:

"Have you ever noticed how, on a scale of one to 10, every untoward event in the life of the Bush presidency goes straight to a 10?

The Abu Ghraib photos? A 10 forever. Dick Cheney catching a hunting buddy with some birdshot? An instant 10. The Bush national guard story? Total 10. How can it be that each downside event in this presidency greets the public at this one, screeching level of outrage and denunciation by the out-of-power party and a perpetually outraged media?

There was a time when what has been called news judgment would deem some stories a five or six and run them on page 14 or deeper in the newscast ... Not with this presidency. Every downside event - large, small and in-between - plays on the front page above the fold now. And when Dick Cheney accidentally pops Harry Whittington, old Harry Reid jumps up from his Senate leader's desk faster than a Nevada jack rabbit to announce, one more time, that this 'is part of the secretive nature of this administration'.

Here are some of the political and media bonfires that have been lit on the White House lawn, stoked and reignited over the past five years: the 'stolen' 2000 election, Halliburton, 'Fahrenheit 9/11', Cheney lives in an 'undisclosed location', Abu Ghraib, torture at Guantánamo Bay, Bush lied about WMD, secret CIA prison sites, Valerie Plame, the neocons ... Cheney's 'secret' energy task force, Cindy Sheehan, Bush is destroying social security, Hurricane Katrina, Jack Abramoff, illegal wiretaps, Bill Frist's stock sales, what else?

From Glenn Reynolds' essay on our perpetually-persnicketty media.

Cross-posted at Say Anything, where I'll be doing a little guest blogging while Rob is busy.

posted by Ace at 12:01 PM

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