Spend a bit of time watching what gets reported. One can find numerous examples of nationally carried speeches given by President Bush that the media then writes outright false articles and commentaries on for months.
As example, recall the statement of Iraq being an imminent threat. This was reported constantly, and it took 6 months of constant statements and arguments by the Whitehouse and various members of the staff before it came to a head and the NYT (to it's eventual credit) ended up writing a half page summary of statements made by Administration officials...which pretty definitively showed that the administration had made no such claim, and in fact, had consistantly stated the opposite of what thousands of newspaper articles and television reports had attributed to them and had refused to take correction for.
This goes on all the time.
Was it Maureen Dowd that wrote the opinion piece excoriating Bush for a statement in which she had in fact edited out the word "not" and replaced it with ellipses? For weeks nationally, columns were written echoing her claim.
How often on the television news do you see where they show the President or other senior official speaking, but don't even broadcast their speech, but rather simply report their characterization of what the official said?
Only a small fraction of people actually read articles as opposed to TV/radio. At least we are represented on radio.
As example, recall the statement of Iraq being an imminent threat. This was reported constantly....the NYT (to it's eventual credit) ended up writing a half page summary of statements made by Administration officials...which pretty definitively showed that the administration had made no such claim.
The intelligence at the time looked pretty dire. And I listened to Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N - I don't think I was the only one who thought, good lord, what are we waiting for? Are you saying that the admin HADN'T made the case for war? But that isn't the problem; most people are happy that Saddam was taken out with or without WMDs. But they were not prepared for the insurgency that followed. And this wasn't just MSM obscuring what was said. Even last year Cheney was on my TV saying that the insurgents were in their last throes..
Despite what politicians think, people CAN handle the truth, and are willing to make sacrifices for national security - look at all the rationing and double shifts at factories and sacrifice people made here in WWII. But when ON TV our leaders keep painting a rosier scenario than what is the case, not only are subsequent statements harder to believe (and despite our discussions here, the polls are consistenting indicating that the public doesn't believe the government anymore ~60%), but some begin to think the the admin. doesn't know what it's doing. And when generals who have been in Iraq start making public statements, can you blame them?
Was it Maureen Dowd that wrote the opinion piece excoriating Bush for a statement in which she had in fact edited out the word "not" and replaced it with ellipses?
Maureen Dowd??!!?? Who reads her? I don't think Sean Hannity worries about her overtaking him in whose opinions get heard...