Wag the Dog

I recently watched Wag the Dog: a 1998 film about a presidential staff that fakes a war to win an election. The film felt eerily similar to the days leading up to the Iraq invasion and the early war. The early war was great for the Bush administration, with all those buzzwords "Showdown with Saddam", "Shock and Awe", "Iraqi Freedom", "Wall of Heroes", and the clips of what looked like fireworks seemingly harmlessly passing over Baghdad(yeah, right). It was truly a media circus, with the media complacently accepting the administration's press and arguements and positions.

Only since Abu Gharib has the media started to gain some teeth and become less of an administration mouthpiece and more of a free press. Still, the damage to the media's credibility had already been done, and the damage to American freedom will take years to heal, assuming moderation somehow takes control.