Our Shameful Press
Dean
A new draft of the Iraqi bill of rights has been posted. Tall Dave notes that if we had a freedom-loving press in this country it would be major news, but instead we have to rely on blogs just to get details on it.
Yes, but we don't have a freedom-loving press. We have a press that believes that whatever it reports is news and whatever it doesn't report is not news. We also have a press that believes that publishing historic positive achievements in that region amounts to "carrying water for the Bush administration" and "touting the administration line," but gloom, doom, disaster, and failure is just "reporting the news objectively."
We also have a press that believes that criticizing the press is a threat to the first amendment. How titanically arrogant can you get?
Anyway, anyone wanting details on the latest draft of the Iraqi bill of rights can get details from Publius Pundit. In looking at some of those rights, I expect that at least a few conservatives and liberals will feel a little envious--they're enshrining some rights there that look like they'd make good additions to our own constitution.
Even for a third-party dictator such as myself, I can see that an Iraqi Bill of Rights is a big, big deal. It's the foundation of a country. You just don't whip a Bill of Rights off the top of your head. I guess that King Press forgot that we nice, shiny Bill of Rights also. And without it we'd be terminating Pressy Poo with righteous prejudice if they right one word on a piece of paper. It's the basics, stupid!