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When Dwight Eisenhower left office with his now famous admonition to Americans to be wary of the growth in power of the military-industrial complex, he didn't foresee one additional partner to the non-elected power block: big media.

The old expression, of course, is that a fish rots from the head down. But if you look at most of the mainstream media -- particularly television -- you would think that the Bush Administration rots everywhere but in its head, meaning Bush in the White House.

Eric Boehlert, in his must read new book "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush," begins his book with this lamentable irony. Bob Woodward, one of the heroes of exposing "Watergate," has now become the role model of the Bush-GOP protective press corps that prevents the exposure of current scandals. In fact, Woodward sat on vital information relating to the Valerie Plame case for two years before he was forced to disclose that he was told about Plame before other reporters.

But it took a federal prosecutor to pry this information from Woodward. Boehlert quotes a media observer as calling it "Watergate in reverse."

Despite public opinion polls that show two thirds of the American public disapprove of Bush's presidency, despite failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite chronic lying that defies belief, despite a spending spree putting the nation on the precipice of bankruptcy, despite massive corruption, despite gross conflicts of interest, despite blatant war profiteering and cronyism, despite an administration that has put us at the brink of WW III, the mainstream press generally still continues to treat Bush with credibility.

Boehlert, as we are, is aghast at how the mainstream media -- through the collusion of its big multi-billion dollar corporate parents -- has joined the military-industrial complex in an ongoing effort to prop up a failed administration, guilty of illegalities, deception, fraud, negligence and gross failure.

America's media used to be a key shaper of public policy by providing reasoned analysis and more-or-less balanced reporting. Now, it is a daily public relations machine for Bush and the Republican Party. Its role is generally to enable and support the power base of the GOP, particularly the Bush Administration.

There are myriads of reasons for this and Boehlert explores them. But, moreover, he details the professional malfeasance of the mainstream media in becoming a de facto extension of the White House communications office. Most BuzzFlash readers will recall many of the mainstream media transgressions as they served as cheerleaders for ruinous Neo-Con visions. Boehlert puts them in context and adds new details and nuance that only will enrage you more at how news has become a public relations / advertising / propaganda commodity.

Of course, the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us against was -- and is -- based on a mutually beneficial relationship in which the growth of the military benefits the makers of weapons systems and military supply contractors (does the name Halliburton ring a bell) so that war becomes necessary in order to create a need for more production, as weapons of war are depleted and need to be replenished. In short, wars are no long necessarily fought because they are in our national interest; they are fought because the military-industrial complex can't profit if no wars are fought.

Similarly, big media is really just a subsidiary of the big mega-corporate conglomerates that are part of the shadow government that has worked to fix the free market system to benefit the few large companies at the top. Big media is the public relations arm of these companies -- and you can be sure news will be slanted to protect the business interests of the parent companies, who know that the Bush Administration butters their bread in regulations and laws that give them near-monopoly powers.

It's all very insidious, very clubby, and very, very anti-democracy and anti-free market.

"Lapdogs" is not a theoretical book (a lot of the above analysis is BuzzFlash value added). Boehlert, who writes for Salon, rolls up his sleeves and documents his case. Any patriotic political junkie worried about the future of democracy and the disgrace of the modern mainstream media must read this book.

It will make you angry that the people who are delivering the nightly news are helping to "fix the facts" for the Bush Administration. They are PR flaks, not journalists.

The fish rots from the head down, and the news media rots from the CEOs and boards of the parent corporations on down to the transcribers who masquerade as reporters.

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