I don't mean to ramp on Stolberg.  She's but a small cog in a gargantuan propaganda machine comprised primarily of her newspaper, the Washington Post, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, and the corporate-owned electronic media that decides what Americans believe.  They get away with it because, as George Orwell said, Americans believe what they are told they believe.  We are conditioned to accept without question each day's version of the news even though it contradicts what we may have seen a few days earlier. 

It's baffling how easily the Bush administration manipulated the media to control public opinion in the prelude to the war on Iraq.  Especially the Times, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning propagandist Judith Miller worked in tandem with now discredited Iraqi exile and Pentagon informer Ahmed Chalabi to present a blatant dis-infomercial campaign -- a tangle of truth, lies and anonymous assertions about hidden WMD, impending danger and Iraqi-Al Qaeda ties -- to “sell” the war to the American people.   It worked.  In fact, it was such a bloody, roaring success that Miller was back at her post just a month after the initial assault, digging up chemical and biological weapons under Iraqi rose bushes and elaborately quoting at length an unnamed "scientist" that she cheerfully admitted she was not allowed to interview...

In her infamous April 21, 2003 article, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert," Miller went into great detail about specific chemicals that "the scientist" had unearthed, as well as information "about Iraqi weapons cooperation with Syria, and with terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda..."   This was a Times scoop of such magnitude that all other US media picked it up and ran with it, totally ignoring Miller's brazen admission that, "...this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home.  Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials..."

But the really really good news is that Miller's military controllers "permitted" her to see the scientist from a distance, and she was able to verify the discovery of WMD by revealing that -- "clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried."   Well, that settles it then.  However, since Miller freely admits she was not allowed to talk to this it-could-be-anybody-especially-if-he-works-for-the-CIA scientist, is this not merely a case of "she said he said?"

It is a fallacy that the American people don't like to be lied to by their leaders.  We love it.  Thrive on it.  Die for it.  Remember Poppy's 1991 incubator babies -- Iraqi troops amassed on the Saudi border?  Remember the millions who died, not just during the war, but as a result of relentless bombing and cruel sanctions for 12 long years until Junior could get back in there and finish the job?  Remember who was secretary of defense back then?

I do.  I worked with the media during Poppy's war and there was no better manipulator in complete control of the media than defense secretary Dick Cheney.  Cheney literally "scrubbed" the truth about that war, and the media were allowed to publish only content and photos released by the Pentagon.  

If we do not consider the human cost of war, we might understand the media's position, for -- unless you are Judith Miller -- how can you cover a war if you are denied access?  Cheney understands this and, in the lead-up to Junior's global fiasco, had improved his "system" to where journalists were required not only to attend "boot camp" to accustom them to military discipline, but to "imbed" with specific units during the war.  We know now that journalists routinely suppress information that casts the US conduct of the war in an unfavorable light.  We know that military censors "vet" stories, and that "pooled" coverage -- the same controlled story -- hits the airwaves and newsstands simultaneously.

History is a stern teacher, and I'm sure Cheney shudders when he remembers the mostly unvarnished media coverage of Vietnam.  Cheney was then, and remains now, determined that such "bad press" will not be repeated.  So far, he's been pretty successful at forcing the media to black out reports on the slaughter of Iraqi civilians and to limit their coverage to handouts from Pentagon press briefings and stories that blame any carnage on the Iraqis themselves.  

So, that's what's up with the New York Times, as well as with its battalions of mainstream wannabe's.  It's what's up with an immoral, power-mad administration and, sadly, with far too many members of the U.S. Congress. It's what happens to democracy when all the stops are pulled out -- when checks and balances are trashed and when nothing is as cool as a coup. 

It's time for Americans to stand up and, in November, go to the polls and retrieve the freedoms we so foolishly let slip away.  Does anyone really believe after watching this gang in action for the last three-and-a-half years that the madness will stop itself?   It should be obvious by now that -- if we keep assuming the position -- Bush, his corporate media buds and our self-serving Congress are gonna keep screwing us.

And -- as someone who knows about these things pointed out recently -- they'll do it simply because they can... 

Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer and a former US Army Public Information Officer.  She will accept praise and atta-boys at: rsamples@sirinet.net. Complaints and death threats should be directed to her cousin, Junior Samples, at BR-549.