I Know Why The Lapworm Turns.

I didn't have a chance to read The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin today, but Atrios did:

The way I see it, the Washington press corps is still appropriately embarrassed that they screwed up in the run-up to war. Now, as Bush's approval ratings fester, they are getting bolder in challenging the official White House line on any number of issues. They're justifiably proud of a handful of great investigative pieces.

But they still haven't addressed the central issue Colbert was raising: Bush's credibility. As it happens, the public is way ahead of them on this one: For more than a year, the polls have consistently been showing that a majority of Americans don't find Bush honest and trustworthy.

And yet, as I've chronicled time and again in this column, (see, for instance, my Feb. 3 column, It's the Credibility, Stupid ) the mainstream press -- the very folks in that ballroom on Saturday night, the ones who actually have access to the president and his aides -- have allowed that fundamental issue to go unexplored.

Here's my impression of what's going on: The media aren't emboldened by Bush's falling approval ratings. They aren't angry about five years of being marginalized and lied to. No, I believe that if it was entirely up to their owners, they wouldn't cover any of this, or would cover it as lightly as possible.

I believe that only reason that the media (or right-wing pundits, for that matter) have been presenting anti-Bush, anti-GOP stories is that they need to preserve their own credibility. They have to walk a very fine line; if they advance their pro-corporate/pro-Republican narrative too obviously, they become like Pravda. Everyone would simply accept it as a given that they're full of shit, and read between the lines accordingly. Kind of like a rapacious parasite that kills its host. Or the Republican party - but I repeat myself...