After comparing how “establishment news outlets… have praised the president-elect’s cautious Cabinet choices” with the similar reaction after Bill Clinton’s first election, Bob Parry writes (Consortium News, 12/15/08) that the reality for those “who resisted the corrupt Bush years–is that we cannot rest on our successes”:
You might have thought there would have been a housecleaning at establishment news organizations where sycophantic journalists enabled George W. Bush and his disasters. But the roster of the mainstream/right-wing news media hasnâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢t changed much at all.
If anything, the neoconservatives have established an even stronger foothold in major news outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post. In other words, to the extent that President Obama does try to take the country in a significantly new direction–especially if he goes after “the mindset” that led us into the Iraq War, as he promised–he can expect strong resistance.
Parry’s lesson: “If this status quo is to change, all of us must keep the pressure on.”
