Media

Amanda has a wonderful rant on her blog about Bush and the way the media portrays him. However, I think she's a tad too simplistic in her explanation of why the media has chosen to treat Bush with kid gloves. I tried to post a comment to her blog about this, but something wasn't working, so I'll post it here:

The media annoy me, too, when it comes to the Shrub. It's easy to understand why they do it, though. It's part Frat boy syndrome (FBS) which you so elegantly describe above, but it's also part economics.

It's the media's job to deliver eyes to their advertisers. That's how they earn money. At first they fawned over the Shrub because he was new, people (even opponents) were hopeful, and because he's a tyrant when it comes to calling on reporters (much like Reagan was, only worse). A large portion of the public seemed to like him (nearly 50%), so the media made an effort to deliver that public to their advertisers.

Like political machines, whenever there's been a whiff of scandle, the media has floated a trial balloon about the story. If the trial balloon fails to excite, the media do not follow it. Katrina was different and may have broken the mold since it excited people of all political leanings. Time will tell if the so-called media backbone stays in place. One thing's for sure - it'll be lost again once the next person is elected.