A Grand Media Strategy that's worked

Since I brought up the news media's timidity in the face of concerted Bush administration attacks, I thought it'd be good to turn to Sidney Blumenthal for some historical context. Blumenthal, writing in The Guardian yesterday, uses the current Mark Felt/Deep Throat revelation to draws a direct line from Nixon's to Bush's Grand Media Strategy:

One of the chief lessons learned from Nixon's demise was the necessity of muzzling the press. The Bush White House has neutralised the press corps and even turned some reporters into its own assets. The disinformation WMD in the rush to war in Iraq, funnelled into the news pages of the New York Times, is the most dramatic case in point. By manipulation and intimidation, encouraging atmosphere of self-censorship, the Bush White House has distanced the press from dissenting professionals inside the government. Mark Felt's sudden emergence from behind the curtain of history evoked the glory days of the press corps and its modern creation myth. It was a warm bath of nostalgia and cold comfort.

BTW: Unfortunately, Blumenthal also contends that the press, even during its finest hour, was being used by the intelligence services. He notes a story by "the Albany Times Union of upstate New York, unreported so far by any major outlet." Apparently "Felt was not working as 'a disgruntled maverick ... but rather as the leader of a clandestine group' of three other high-level agents to control the story by collecting intelligence and leaking it." Hmmmmmm. "For more than 30 years the secrecy around Deep Throat diverted attention to who Deep Throat was rather than what Deep Throat was - a covert FBI operation in which Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was almost certainly an unwitting asset."

Interesting - and thoroughly depressing if true.