The press is back to towing the line with "hopeful" stories about the relief efforts and New Orleans recovery and "not as many dead bodies as previously thought." For a few brief moments there it looked like we might actually have a free press and that the free press might actually provide a useful service for our democracy. But they're back to being Republican lapdogs a mere one week after Katrina.
I also thought for a brief moment that the press might start investigating things. Because FEMA is not the only can of worms in the Bush administration. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a major agency that hasn't suffered an outflow of professional talent and an influx of party hacks.
As our news looks increasingly like propaganda, it is worth asking what it means to have a society where journalists tow the party line and fear falling out of favor. Because it is emperors and dictators who refuse to allow criticism. It is emperors and dictators who don't discuss their decisions with those they rule. An interesting dynamic (repeated in places as diverse as imperial China, the Roman empire, North Korea, Ethiopia) is that the emperor who makes a poor decision can remain popular with ordinary people because the ordinary people believe that he has made the poor decision because of bad information from his advisors.
Bush is one of the least accessible presidents in American history by design. He can get away with (apparently) virtually anything because the press must choose between distributing propaganda or getting no information at all. In this, the Bush administration has behaved like they are dictators rather than elected officials and they have gotten away with it.
