The War on the Press Is About Pork

The Republicans war on the press is about pork. Everything having to do with Republicans is about money. So this is not surprising. The less accountable government is, the more pork to fatten the Republicans, as if they aren't fat enough. Every government project in this Administration has been nothing less than a huge giveaway of tax dollars to big business. The biggest slice of the dollars going to Iraq, New Orleans, Florida following the hurricaines, FEMA, is diverted to fat cats pockets. If the press has no credibility, if they are bullied into silence by a head hunting government, then the pork can flow unabated.
Eleanor Clift makes a telling point in her Newsweek article.

You have to go back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s to find Congress so outrageously trying to stifle dissent. Signed by President John Adams to quash newspapers aligned with rival Thomas Jefferson, some 25 people were arrested and 10 editors and publishers convicted under these laws. This time around, at least, the resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday condemning news organizations for publishing classified information has no force of law. It’s pure political theater.


[...]The larger point is that journalists have taken up the task of holding this administration accountable. Congress has done nothing. A new book, “The Broken Branch,” by congressional scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, makes the point that the Republicans who vaulted into the majority in 1994 are either crusaders, for whom the institution is incidental, or opportunists, getting rich at the expense of the institution. Ornstein has been around a long time and has a strong stomach. He’s seen all manner of financial and sexual escapades over the years, “but now it’s not just illegal stuff, it’s the stuff that’s legal,” he says, pointing to the 10-fold increase in “earmarks” since the Republicans took power. These are pet projects that benefit individual members tucked into legislation without scrutiny at the last minute. “There are members making killings in earmark transactions,” says Ornstein. Among them is House Speaker Dennis Hastert who bought a piece of rural property in his Illinois district and then worked hard to earmark $207 million in federal money for a major highway nearby. He sold the property for a $2 million profit. When news of his windfall made the front pages, Hastert blamed the “unrelenting Democratic media.”


[...]It took the Democrats 40 years in power to develop their sense of entitlement. “The Republicans have a much shorter learning curve,” says Ornstein. MORE