The great Bill Moyers wrote an article
in Salon today lamenting the fact that he had initially praised CNN for
announcing it was going to ban pathological liar Kellyanne Conway from
appearances on the network, but then reversed itself within a day. I feel
Bill’s pain, but like the Cowardly Lion, the sycophantic mainstream press still
hasn’t found the wizard to give it the courage it needs.
The American mainstream press has been
a propaganda arm of the government for a very long time (recall the virtually unanimous
support for the disastrous Iraq war) the problem today is that the Trump team
isn't playing by the old rules, and it's disrupting a once cozy relationship.
Past administrations and presidents lied all the time, but it was done with
civility and decorum that was acceptable to the networks, so it was okay. With
Trump and his administration, there isn't that thin veneer of reasonableness to
slide lies by unquestioning interviewers. The Trump buffoons are up in your
face with lie after lie after, forcing the networks out of their comfort zones.
As Moyers clearly points out, CNN and the others want badly to play along, to
let the game continue has it has for decades, but Trump and his minions are far
too dull-witted and ideologically zombified to understand the rules of the
game. The mainstream media is being forced to fight back, not because it really
wants to call out the administration's lies or it has some new-found zeal for
exposing the truth. Panicked, CNN almost called a time out, but then decided it
wasn't ready to call off the game.
