The line of demarcation is no longer left and right, conservative or liberal, but old media mentality and new. The old mentality insists that the people can only communicate with their duly elected officials, and vice-versa, through self-appointed media demagogues, as necessary intermediaries.
So the establishment media was not so upset that the government was paying for "propaganda," as they were not paying THEM for THEIR propaganda. Not paying them off first and exclusively, is absolutely scandalous -- and a violation of all the Ten Commandments and Amendments -- written and upheld by the mainstream media themselves, of course. Who else can be trusted?
In short, the mainstream media has become the largest and most powerful extortion racket -- making the teachers' union and university professors look like rank con-artists.
No wonder they are leading the cries, "Free Saddam!"