Boehlert Shreds Mainsteam Media

Eric Boehlert at Salon isn't all that impressed with the Mainstream Media's newly-found passion (free pass required to read this excellent piece in its entirety):

Think about it. It took the worst U.S. natural disaster in a century -- with a Civil War-like refugee crisis and undiluted chaos throughout New Orleans -- for the mainstream press to conquer, at least temporarily, its collective fear of offending Republicans and the White House and its trepidation toward the angry army of press haters complaining about liberal bias and report what it believed was the truth.

The consensus among observers of this press phenomenon is that reporters in the besieged city experienced such a huge disconnect between what they were seeing up close and what they were hearing from relief officials (e.g., Brown's early assertion that the federal relief effort was "going relatively well") that they couldn't help boiling over on the air. No doubt that's true.

But for how many months (years?) have reporters in Iraq been witnessing the disconnect between the often burgeoning, bloody insurgency and rhetoric from White House officials who insist the insurgents are actually in their "final throes"? Why have so little anger and passion about Iraq appeared on TV screens? One answer: There's a powerful conservative push-back against the press when it hits hard on Iraq -- which so far has not occurred regarding Katrina.