DR. J'S SHORT SHOT
by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

Most observers agree that the unanimous report of the Iraq Study Group is totally damning the Bush-Cheney policy for Iraq, as well as on its implementation. (It should be noted that among the members of the Group are former Senator Alan Simpson, one of the most conservative Republican Senators ever, before the Santorum-Inhofe crowd and Ed Meese, one-time President of the National Council for Policy [he may still be; they are very secretive], the organization for all of the major right and far right-wing organizations in the US.) At the White House press conference on Dec. 6, 2006, following the report's release, David Gregory of NBC News, reading from the Report, asked White House press secretary Tony Snow if he didn't think that its conclusions were indeed damning. Snow responded by attacking Gregory for asking a "partisan" question, and in the subsequent colloquy about that issue, not the report's findings, managed to avoid dealing with the latter altogether.

Thus Snow engaged in the classic right-wing response to potentially damning questions: always attack, never defend, and attack the questioner; do not deal with the substance of the question. In classic terms: kill the messenger. Snow has done this expertly in recent times on such matters as whether the Bush policy is still "stay the course" when they have announced that it is isn't, and whether the civil war in Iraq is really a civil war when everyone else but them says that it is. So how come? Well, Tony Snow is just very expertly doing the job he was hired to do, and David Gregory and an occasional other brave journalist or no, he just isn't going to change.

In this space last April ("A Commentary on the Tony Snow Job [0]") it was noted that the job Snow was hired to do is surely not to answer questions forthrightly, honestly, and openly; is surely not to establish a cooperative relationship between the White House and the media; is surely not to increase the amount of information made available to the American people about the Executive Branch of their government, how it operates, and what it is doing. So what was, and is, it then?

1. First, Snow was to revive the old CNN political show "Crossfire," where yelling and screaming was substituted for rational discussion and disagreement over significant political issues. Reducing reporters to jelly by yelling at them, literally or figuratively, whether they yell back or not, is job one.

2. Further demean and disdain the media, treating them as untrustworthy and unimportant. Obfuscate, conceal, distract, distort, and lie, with more skill than any previous holder of the position.

3. Begin the merger of the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda, of which F"N"C is the prime property, into the government.

4. Snow is not a "newsman." He is a voice of Radical Right-wing Republicanism. Hiring him clearly demonstrates what the Georgites think that "news" is all about --- as made so clear every day by the F"N"C (which I do watch, folks): PROPAGANDA.

So yesterday, Tony Snow certainly fulfilled his job description. As for his parent, it was said here last April that the Volkischer Beobachter (the Nazi Party's daily "newspaper") is right around the corner. Well, this morning (Dec. 7, 2006, Pearl Harbor Day, it happens), the three major stories dealt with on the prime 7 AM ST "Fox and Friends" segment (the morning show of the F"N"C for those smart enough never to look at Fox) were, in order: the resignation of one of Jimmy Carter's staff over the former President's publication of a book that condemns Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, the announced plans of NASA to establish a permanent base on the moon and from there go on to a manned landing on Mars, and the fight against the "War on Christmas." The ISG Report was mentioned briefly in their brief "news" segment. I kid you not.

DR. J'S SHORT SHOT

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) a weekly Contributing Author for The Political Junkies (www.thepoliticaljunkies.net [1]), Contributing Editor for The Moving Planet Blog (http://www.planetarymovement.org/ [2]), and a Columnist for BuzzFlash (http://www.buzzflash.com/ [2]).

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