BCT Editorial – 7/22/05

This page was last updated on July 23, 2005.

Jogging around; Editorial; Beaver County Times; July 22, 2005.

See my critique of a related Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial (“Dump Rove,” July 15^th) for most of my comments on this topic.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“UNTOUCHABLE: When all is said and done, Karl Rove will still be perched next to President Bush in the White House. A number of factors will go into his going unpunished for his role in the Plame/CIA situation: the murkiness of the law involved, Republican control of Congress, the ability of talk radio and blogs to confuse the issue, the inability of the Democrats to capitalize politically on this opportunity and the indifference of the public. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in an essay on the Fugitive Slave Law, ‘the great show their legitimate power in nothing more than their power to misguide us.’”

[RWC] Right off the bat, the editorial assumes guilt before we know all the facts. Further, the limited facts we think we know indicate no crime was committed.

I’d like to translate one passage of the editorial. “The ability of talk radio and blogs to confuse the issue” really means, “as part of the mainstream media, we can no longer ensure you hear only one side of the story.”

The final sentence tells us the mainstream media has lost its power along with its increasing inability “to misguide us.”