Friday, September 28, 2007

Nothing Has Changed In The Village

The profoundly depressing fact is how little has changed in the Village over the past several years. I'm not simply referring to rather disappointing results of Democratic control of Congress, though that too is of course an issue, but rather the sentiments and conventional wisdom of the political media industrial complex. It shouldn't be a surprise, I suppose, that this static mob would be slow to change and slower still to acknowledge any failures of their own. As Greenwald writes:

The idea that our political press would subject an Iran war march to sufficient scrutiny is only slightly more ludicrous than the idea that this Congress would do anything to stop it. If the administration wanted a war with Iran, there would be some marginally increased opposition expressed by the political establishment, maybe even significantly more opposition.

But if the President decided that he wanted a military confrontation with Iran, would anyone have any real faith in the ability of any institution to stop him other than outright defiance by the U.S. military? It is a fairly sobering reflection of the profound failures of our political and media institutions that this possibility is even discussed.