And not only that, every newspaper has Forums and the editorials are linked to letters and opinion has become "hot."
And what do we get? Mostly trash.
And I am not just talking about "Bush lied and soldiers died." I am talking about comments that are just so wrong that it boggles the mind to read them. People talk about the flooding of New Orleans during Katrnia without even knowing that the city is below sea level which meant that the breeches had to be fixed and then the water pumped out. Which made the task much more difficult than just letting the water run back into the river which is the usual way of flood recovery.
They claim that there was a conspiracy on 9/11 and that the steel building frames could not have failed when any number of experts have shown that to be wrong.
They buy into man made global warming when the weather sweetie can't forecast what will happen 72 hours out, and no one can explain why the Medieval Warming period exists since they had no cars....
In short, it appears that although we have more information available in the history of the world, the people who could use it have very little ability to separate facts from fiction and without that they become easy prey for the media, who in turn are easy prey because most of them have little training in science and logical thinking.
For an example, I remind you of the NYTimes article written by Joe Wilson when he made huge brough haha over Bush's statement that the British claimed that Iraq had tried to buy yellow cake from Niger in 1999. In fact, Bush was quoting the Brits, so if you want to make a point you have to allude to dark actions and lies. Now this is what Wilson wrote:
I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.
Okay fine. But what did write? Did he write that no meeting between Iraqi and Niger had taken place? No. He said that it was doubtful that any such "transaction" had ever taken place.
"Transaction" dear hearts refers to a sale. Not an offer, not an attempt, not discussions, but a sale. He further says:
Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.
The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.
What facts are in doubt? Bush said that there had been an attempt per the Brits. Wilson's article writes that no transaction (sale) took place. So he doesn't deny that a meeting could have tak place, but you have to read what he writes very carefully.
He then says that "his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them." So he says there was no sale, which was never claimed, and that the Brit's conclusion, which Bush believed, was wrong.
Oh really? Remember he also wrote this?
In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.
What did he tell the CIA? Have a look at the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The CIA's DO gave the former ambassador's information a grade of "good," which means that it added to the IC's body of understanding on the issue....The reports officer said that a "good" grade was merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.
Huh? And have you noticed what the title of the New York Times article was?
"What I Didn't Find in Africa"
So what he found was there had been no sale, no purchase. And if he told his buds in the Department of State that Bush's embraceof the Brits information was wrong, why did he tell the CIA that Nigerien officials said the Iraqis came in 1999 and that the Nigerien PM believed wanted to purchase.....That is a huge disconnect.
Did the media just ignore it, or were they just too dumb to figure it out? To return to my initial comments, at one time I thought the media was in the tank for Wilson. I now think that they were in the tank, and because of that, couldn't exercise enough logical thinking to ask some very hard and very important questions.
That's sad.
