Gore

I've just finished reading the introduction to Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason - so I'm obviously in a position to provide a detailed critique of the work. Hey - that's how media works.

And that's pretty much his point - that the media is broken, and that the country's political discourse is broken. It's far more of a media analysis than I'd expected. He's telling us to put aside, for a moment, the disastrous Bush presidency, and look at what's happened to the whole political system.

It's actually a lot like his speech of 2005 where he talks about the one-way communication that now passes as our political discourse. In a television-led media, the conversation is one way - out to the viewer. The revolution era pamphleteering and print-oriented discourse from the first American century is gone, and what's replaced it is not so much discourse as it is propaganda.

Which I agree with whole-heatedly. But I'm not sure that I agree with the premise that the media - the type of media that is - has been so much the culprit. Was it really true that in the world of print, everyone had a voice?

I can't see that in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a meritocracy of ideas. Was publication that accessible? Not really. Once the page is printed, it's still a one-way conversation. Aside from letters to the editor, the public was still seen and not heard by the papers. Did the print media indulge in 'info-tainment?' I think the answer is yes - there have always been yellow journalists and scandal rags out there. The National Enquirer has always sold well.

So what has changed? I think it's the people behind the media who have made the difference. In the days of Edward R. Murrow, the visual media (as Gore points out) tried to behave like the print media and enforce journalistic standards. And, in Murrow's day, there were scandal sheets and the like - but they weren't considered "news."

That's the difference - the "news" is no longer a thing unto itself. It's been merged with entertainment wholeheartedly. There are no lines left to cross journalistically. Anything that hits the airways, no matter how slanted or fact-free, is news. The people who might have been the voices of reason, who might have said "stop!" are no longer on the payroll of the big media conglomerates.

News is propaganda. News is titillation for its own sake. And not just the broadcasters know this - the politicians and political operatives know it too well.

That's how a guy like Karl Rove works - he knows the buttons to push to get his warped message to viewers. Truth and honest discourse don't enter into it - it's about power and nothing else.

There are no grown-ups left to play referee. And that's been the biggest error that the Democrats have made - they've cried foul instead of hitting back. They haven't used the media the way the Repubs have - by striking out, the facts be damned.

Not that I'm advocating a break with facts, just that facts are less important than an emotional appeal when using television. Rove knows this - and he knows how to hide it. The US Attorney scandal is hinged on Rove's efforts to create a false 'vote fraud' problem that will underpin his suppression of underprivileged voters.

To my knowledge, there has never been a purely partisan, purely political operative who has run a White House the way Rove has. Everything - everything - that the Bush team does is political.

The tragedy of hurricane Katrina was such a devastating blow to them because it exposed them to the world in a visual, television-friendly way. You could see their lack of care and competence. You could witness with your own eyes the extreme ideology that broke the country, the ignorance that's been put in charge, the arrogance of the idiocy.

It's the reason that Abu Ghraib was such a huge moment - it was in pictures. Words don't count anymore.

But I don't think it's solely the method of the media. It's the lack of control on the message, the lack of a referee to say "that's a lie" without being partisan. Repubs have been making up their 'facts' for years. It was Ron Reagan's favorite pastime.

And it's why Reagan did away with the equal time rules in the media. Before Reagan, there had to be equal time on the air for both major parties. There was an enforced balance. So when Nixon got on TV and lied, a Democrat was on to tell the truth.

And I think that might be a good first stet in restoring democracy - equal time. Let's put it back. That might necessitate the creation of an entire cable news network to offset the Fox propaganda channel, but so be it.

Let freedom ring.