No, the press is called that in its own smugness, but the press couldn't stop Bush from finishing the job, say, in Fallujah. They have no veto, no vote, and the President doesn't have to check with them. He had the opportunity for victory, and he allowed political PR concerns to cloud his judgment.

I don't know of this situation so I can't comment.

That isn't the fault of the press. You have a lot of well thought-out points there, but in the end it all relies on the idea that the press needs to be involved in the President's thought processes. Doesn't the mere fact of the bias you are talking about invalidate them as a source of information????

Thank you for your kind words. The purpose of the press is to inform the people who then put the pressuer on the elected officials. When Mr. Bush ignored the press and the people he was then painted by the press as out of touch and in a bubble. An argument he had to answer if he wanted to keep the confidence of the people. So even when the press is ignored by a president the impact is still there.

Listen, if you guys are smart enough to see how biased and unrepresentative the press is... are you saying the President is that stupid not to? If as you say the press is cheerleading for the enemy, then wouldn't the president be actually obeying the ENEMY when he obeys the press?

Again the press is not the enemy the liberals are not the enemy but there are times when the enemy’s goals fit nicely with the liberal goals. Ask any news person why they got into the field they will most likely tell you they joined to make a difference. That means they are out there with an agenda. The purpose of journalism is to report the facts not add commentary or opinion that is what the opinion page is for. We the people of the United States are supposed to form an opinion based on the news reported to us. Read any news paper and you will rarely read a story that does not have an opinion or slant to it. Right or left, conservative or liberal they are all doing the country a disservice. In tilting the story, like not reporting the good things happening, is just as bad as reporting only the good things. The fact is that we are winning and doing serious damage to terrorist around the world. The fact is we have had some screw ups. But if you read the papers and watch the news you will see more bad than good when the reverse is true. Add to that that the people like to read bad news and it explains why we see so much of it. But it needs to be balanced out or we will give up in frustration like we did in Vietnam.

So, instead of disproving the press by handing them overwhelming victories, we fulfill their prophesies by cowering away every time an ill political wind blows. Make sense to you? If you were building a house, and your hateful inlaws came by every day to tell you that you were going to fail, would you walk off with it half finished in the belief it would make them happy?

Not so much to make them happy but to stop hearing the crap. Once again I point to Vietnam where we were winning all over the place but we gave up because we lost too many men in the fight. We dishonored our servicemen so we won’t feel bad about losing. Makes no sense but that is what happened and I fear it will happen again.

Hey Modman are you okay dude? just checking in, I have not seen you on JU lately and wandering if you are okay.