A Confession by a Member of a Thoroughly Dishonest Profession

I missed this “gem” from Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly a couple of months ago on why he (and, by inference, the WORMs [Worn-Out Reactionary Media, known to most as the formerly Mainstream Media], don’t speak out against Iran’s conduct and loony leader:

And yet, I know perfectly well that criticism of Iran is not just criticism of Iran. Whether I want it to or not, it also provides support for the Bush administration’s determined and deliberate effort to whip up enthusiasm for a military strike. Only a naif would view criticism of Iran in a vacuum, without also seeing the way it will be used by an administration that has demonstrated time and again that it can’t be trusted to act wisely.

So what to do? For the most part, I end up saying very little.

Junkyard Blog commented on it last week, and I agree:

He’d rather let Iran stand unrebuked than give W an excuse to do something about it. If I accused the Left of thinking like this, even though I suspected it, I’d feel kind of sheepish and get written off as a nut; but here’s black and white confirmation of some of my worst suspicions. Some of them.

This is a journalist, by the way; someone who—though he may be biased—is supposed to have some passing acquaintance with telling the truth. Even if it helps the other party. But his conscience is troubled more by possibly helping Bush with his super-important, oracular, weighty-smart words than it is by his helping the Mullahs—the antithesis of everything he believes, and who want to kill us all—through his dishonest silence.

Of course, Drum is a columnist and blogger. But don’t think for a minute that this mind-set hasn’t throroughly infected those whose job it is to bring us the news in the first place.

This is a “profession” blinded by political correctness and partisanship that won’t change even as its business ship is sinking, sinking (in print circulation), sinking.