by Norman Solomon, published 1/29 by CommonDreams.org
With great fanfare the other day, Oprah Winfrey asked James Frey a question that mainstream journalists refuse to ask George W.
Bush: “Why would you lie?”
Many
pundits and news outlets have chortled at the televised unmasking of
Frey as a liar. The reverberations have spanned from schlock media to
highbrow outlets. On Friday, the PBS “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” devoted
an entire segment to what happened. The New York Times supplemented its
page-one coverage with an editorial that concluded “Ms. Winfrey gave
the audience, including us, what it was hoping for: a demand to hear
the truth.”
A key
reality of the National Security Agency spying story is: President Bush
lied. But routinely missing from media coverage is a demand to hear the
truth.
More
than two years after he started the NSA’s domestic spying without
warrants, Bush was unequivocal. During a speech in Buffalo on April 20,
2004, he said: “Any time you hear the United States government talking
about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing
has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down
terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so.”
Frey
lied about his personal life in a book, and that infuriated Oprah
Winfrey. “It is difficult for me to talk to you, because I really feel
duped,” she said, confronting him in the midst of the Jan. 26 telecast.
“I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions
of readers.”
Yet the journalists who interview Bush aren’t willing to question him in similar terms.
The president didn’t merely betray millions of readers. He betrayed hundreds of millions of citizens.
Bush
lied about basic civil liberties in the United States. Instead of
relying on euphemisms, the news media should directly confront him with
the question: “Why would you lie?”
During
the “Oprah” show, while lecturing a powerful book-publishing executive
who had served as an enabler for the author’s mendacity, Winfrey
declared: “That needs to change.” But what about the powerful
news-media executives who keep enabling the president’s mendacity?
When
Frey tried to weasel out of responsibility for concocting a phony story
about a root canal without anesthetic, the host interrupted after the
words “I’ve struggled with the idea of it –”
“No, the lie of it,” Winfrey said. “That’s a lie. It’s not an idea, James, that’s a lie.”
But
high-profile journalists are unwilling to confront President Bush on
national television with such clarity: “That’s a lie. It’s not an idea,
George, that’s a lie.”
Norman Solomon’s latest book is “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com