Originally published February 8 2006
Independent news site releases 10th annual list of media follies
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Just in time for the Oscars, independent news site AlterNet recently released its 10th annual "Media Follies" list, complete with scathing commentary of news events found under the categories "Overhyped Stories" and "Underreported Stories."
As one would expect in a year when one of the underreported stories was our government's covert propaganda campaigns, there's plenty to unravel: stories that should never have been stories, stories whose reporting largely missed the point, and stories barely told at all in mainstream US media.
They were all introduced and hammered into self-serving "controversies" by the right-wing echo chamber at times when they really wanted to make sure the public wasn't paying attention to congressional or White House scandals, a disastrous war, or the death of a major American city.
From the myth early in the year that Bush's vision for democracy was spreading like wildfire throughout the Middle East, to the notion that Iraqi troops were trained en masse and ready to fight, to entirely mythical "progress" in Iraq's economy and reconstruction, to the prediction, dutifully trotted out during three separate elections, that each such election marked a major turning point and a crippling blow for the insurgency, to an insurgency in its "death throes," it was hard to take seriously anything the White House said about Iraq.
George Bush is already a lame-duck president.
There's usually a year or two grace period after the president is elected for the second time, when he can point to his second election victory as vindication for his policies and use it to get some important legislation passed.
All the major initiatives he wanted to pass in Congress this year, from the privatization of Social Security to the permanent renewal of the USA Patriot Act provisions, have gone down in flames, even with a solid Republican majority in both houses.
The most basic budget bills have failed to pass because Bush couldn't get a consensus within his own party.
Meanwhile, members of his administration are leaking stories of Bush administration misdeeds every week.
It is no longer a secret that the US tortures prisoners.
Oil exports are down drastically, leaving the Iraqi government without the money to pay salaries to teachers, doctors, police, and other civil servants.
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