“It’s our job to bash the President”

An unabashed moment of truth from the media, delivered (unintentionally, I’m sure) by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas. Via Newsbusters, we get a transcript from NPR’s “Inside Washington” on WETA in D.C., this past Friday:

Gordon Peterson: "What do you think, Evan? Are the mainstream media bashing the president unfairly?"
Evan Thomas: "Well, our job is to bash the president, that's what we do almost --"
Peterson: "But unfairly?"
Thomas: "Mmmm -- I think when he rebuffed, I think when he just kissed off the Iraq Study Group, the Baker-Hamilton Commission, there was a sense then that he was decoupling himself from public opinion and Congress and the mainstream media, going his own way. At that moment he lost whatever support he had."

Newsbusters comments:

The message in that is very simple: the president must never "decouple" himself from the "mainstream media," because they are the key players in maintaining public opinion. Remember, Thomas also believed this "mainstream" media would be worth "maybe 15 points" to John Kerry in 2004, which didn't exactly work out.

Now how about some push-polling by Newsweek? Take a gander at some of these questions:

-- "Do you think President Bush's decisions about policy in Iraq and other major areas are influenced more by the facts or more by his personal beliefs, regardless of the facts?"
-- "At this point in time, do you personally wish that George W. Bush's presidency was over, or don't you feel this way?"

Note as well that the “Scooter Libby” trial has virtually disappeared from the media…if it doesn’t hurt the President, it’s not worth reporting, I guess….

What a shame that our media has allowed itself to be reduced to simple partisan attacks and/or cheerleading – I guess the bias is so blatent now that guys like Newsweek’s Thomas now simply acknowledge its existance and try to explain and defend it, rather than argue that it doesn’t even exist. I guess that is progress, in a dark way…