Cheney, Osama, Saddam & 9/11

The American Standard has an article in their latest issue that takes to task those who are accusing VP Dick Cheney of trying to lie to the American people about a link between Saddam's Iraq and 9/11. Cheney's answer was "We don't know." He might as well of said that he had photos of Saddam and Osama sitting around the campfire nude strumming the banjo, singing Charlie Daniels tunes.

The Standard takes many of the mainstream press writers to task by presenting evidence and by pointing to other potential evidence that no one has examined or questioned, either from within the government or the media.

I'm not so dense as to believe that there is no anti-Bush bias in the media. Anymore, however, it is starting to border, not on bias, but on outright front page activism. There should have been no need for Bush to take his message outside the realm of the mainstream media. He never should have had to take such extraordinary action to avoid distortion and spin. Yet he felt he had to. That is very telling about the state of the political activism and bias of the media today.

The media has had a multitude of articles deploring and questioning the rise of blogs as a news source for many people. They complain about the lack of editorial oversight, the inevitable errors that are made, and of the power of the blogosphere to influence the national debate on any number of issues.

Maybe part of the reason for the rise in the influence of blogs is because most bloggers tend to be very open about their political slant. Bloggers don't pretend to be impartial. We're very partial; we're very committed to our beliefs. But we're also not afraid of being challenged. We're not afraid of being fact-checked. We're not afraid of being confronted with the opposing viewpoint. Quite often, in fact, we search out and link to the opposing viewpoint as a convenience for our readers, so that they can get the whole story and can make an informed decision about our personal stance.

In short, we tend to treat our readers with respect (relatively speaking). We tend to acknowledge that our readers are often times as smart, if not smarter, than ourselves. With a few exceptions, bloggers tend not to put on airs of superiority. Rather we come across with the confidence of conviction (which is often viewed as arrogance and condensation by the wafflers of the world).

Blogs don't hide their intentions. Blogs don't try to cover up their political biases.

That is a large part of the reason why the mainstream press is losing significance in the face of blogs. The media tries to position itself as an impartial reporting organization, yet in its work, it proves otherwise.

"We don't know." Is that a lie? Depends on your point of view. If you believe that all the evidence that could ever be found and examined has been, then yes. It is a lie.

But if you believe that there may be more evidence out there or that all the evidence available has not been completely examined, then no. It is not.

As the author of the Standard article points out, there are other pieces of evidence that deserve review. There are other pieces of evidence that seem to have both been ignored and to have significance to answering the question at hand.

No one appointed the media as judge and jury of the political world. Their position demands that they ask questions to seek out the answer, not that they create the answer by proclamation.

Perhaps one day, that will become clear to them.