Good Morning America. Now, wake the hell up.

If Americans come to their senses before our fearful leaders bring Armageddon down on our pointy little heads, and we actually haul the ringleaders of this criminal enterprise called the Bush administration into court, the heads of the major television networks should also be rounded up and put on the docket for aiding and abetting.

Yesterday morning I caught a brief segment on Good Morning America. The Awe Shucks Charlie Gibson and his ebony and ivory female bookends yucked it up over video comparing Vice President Cheney throwing out the first pitch at the Washington National’s home opener and Bush’s toss at the Cincinnati Reds first home game.

The emphasis of the GMA segment was on Cheney’s pitch hitting the dirt at home plate, while the much more physically robust President actually threw the ball all the way to the catcher. Har, har, har…. Of course, the real story of the day was that Cheney was roundly boo’d, by the all-American crowd of baseball fans from the minute he set foot on the field until he wrapped himself in his black cape and skulked off. GMA muted the crowd noise and the three amigos made only the most oblique reference to the hostile crowd.

The segment was insidiously crafted to take the emphasis off the unflattering reality and turn it into a playful “what-a-couple-of-big-kids” puff piece. If you asked around, most people would probably not see any huge issue involved in the GMA baseball segment. What’s the big deal? The big deal is that this type of subtle re-writing of history by our media goes on day in and day out.

Many of us shake our heads in disbelief when we read the various polls that show a consistent third of Americans think Bush is doing a good job as President, despite the overwhelming evidence that he is running this country into the ground. I think we underestimate the power of the media in our society to manipulate public opinion.
FOX News takes a chainsaw to truth every day, and if you’re not a rabid conservative, you probably realize what’s going on. But the much subtler forms of truth shading found in the mainstream media are, I believe, more diabolical and effective forms of propaganda.

The media moguls know exactly what they are doing. Like the lookout at a bank robbery, they may not be holding the gun, but they are playing an integral role in aiding and abetting the destruction of democracy for the understood promise of political payback. They are helping the government con the American people, and that’s a crime in my book. Someone needs to be held accountable.