As I think about this whole business with recently unemployed Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby's indictment, I have the nagging and uneasy feeling that there is an altogether too cozy relationship between the insiders at the White House and the esteemed members of the 4th estate.
I mean, think about all the chit-chat calls going back and forth between Scooter and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, et al and the media the summer of 2003 that were mentioned in the Fitzgerald news conference. Casual conversations where information is subtlely passed, complete with spin, to the media who either leave out or downplay "inconvenient" information or dutifully publish favorable information, attributing it to "high placed officials" in the administration.
Is this why there was no questioning of the rationale for going to war with Iraq by the usually skeptical media? Because they were cozying up to the administration with these myriad chats "on background"?
So much for probing journalism.
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