Bushies Managing the Media

Source: "Putting Her Foot Down and Getting the Boot," by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, July 10, 2008.

Apparently Gina Grey (right), an Iraq vet, was fired from her job as public relations director at the nation's most important military cemetery because she wanted the press who were allowed by family members to cover military funerals to he allowed closer to the funerals. It seems that under the Bush administration the rules for Arlington cemetery were changed to reduce access, and cemetery officials are calling families encouraging them to disallow press coverage.

"Had I not put my foot down, had I just gone along with it and not said regulations were being violated, I'm sure I'd still be there," said the jobless Gray, who, over lunch yesterday in Crystal City, recounted what she is certain is her retaliatory dismissal.

Remember how the Bush administration in the past censored the photos of the coffins of the dead soldiers being returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

We depend on the media to provide the information we need in our democracy to help us make the right decisions as citizens and voters. Keeping the press from doing their work, or from doing it well, is a real disservice to democracy. We need to be reminded, and reminded often, of how many Americans are dying and how many are being wounded and injured in Iraq.

Indeed, we need to be reminded of how many Iraqis (and Afghanis) are being killed, injured, wounded, and having their lives disrupted and ruined by the American occupation of their country. I find that Doonsbury is the site that does this best, which is even more a complaint about mainstream media than a compliment to Gary Trudeau.

One wonders what kind of democracy President Bush thought the United States would promote in the Middle East? Of course, someone who thinks that they can promote democracy by invasion and punting the occupation......