Tim Blair

I don't suppose this means they'll take another look at Bush.

Maybe it's recognition of the fact that that they work for a propaganda organ and don't acutally report news.

No, they won’t take another look at Bush. That issue is still way way too “sensitive” for them. They don’t learn the lesson. They don’t, with any depth, apply lessons.

To the newsmannikins the lesson of 9/11/01 was—Get Al Qaeda to stop. And there the newsmannikins stop. To Bush the lesson was—Destroy Al Qaeda &, since the USA should have addressed root & branch of the Al Qaeda threat in the past, we should head off other gathering security threats at the pass rather than waiting for them to hit us hard at home—as they will, given bloodthirst, weaponized subcultures & mentalities, & ever increasingly available technologies adaptable for mass destruction.

Here's a good article by Max Boot which compares the media's attitudes towards Reagan and Bush. Lead paragraph:

Listening to the endless encomiums to Ronald Reagan, many from people who once derided him, I couldn't help wonder whether some day George W. Bush would receive similar tributes from his current enemies. It seems unlikely, even to me, but then it seemed pretty unlikely 20 years ago that the Gipper would ever win widespread acclaim as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.

Wow, ForNow - GREAT summary of the situation.

It has seemed to me for a long time that no matter WHO the sitting U.S. president is, he will be fair game for the media elite who want every president to be Richard Nixon and every war to be Vietnam.

Thanks, Barbara. I’ve said these things hundreds of different ways starting on 9/13/01, & this is the first time anybody has said “WOW.” Now I can go off to work (yes, on Sunday) in a particularly good mood, I have the sword of my summary to wield as the occasion ariseth. :-) —ForNow.

"...did I miss something?"

He and his professional colleagues missed the last train to reality.

Perhaps these journos need to free their minds to use their brains. Or something.

JorgXMcKie,

I don't suppose this means they'll take another look at Bush.

"Newsmannikins"

Haha! Can I steal that, ForNow? Excellent post, by the way.

Good to see, BUT ...

Remember that they are only backing away from their previous anti-Reagan stances because they have to. Reagan's victories were far too obvious to be denied any longer, and the public's love for the man runs deep.

Reminds of the old man in Catch-22. When the Germans marched into his town, he loved the Germans. When the Allies marched in, he loved the Allies. Just like the press now loves Reagan.

I don't suppose this means they'll take another look at Bush.

Longer than that -- I don't expect George W. to be dead at 77 if his dad is jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, for fun, at 80.

“Newsmannikins”—twice in one day! I made that up, oh was it a decade ago? The most comment I’d ever received on it was—“What do you mean by ‘newsmannikins’?” Yes, you & anybody else may steal it.

Bush has an MBA from Harvard, not Yale, but the point is still valid.

Before switching over to C-Span's coverage of the Reagan funeral because CNN was so irritating, I listened to Wolf Blitzer mention several times how classy President Mbeki of South Africa was to attend the funeral.

In Wolf's addled brain, South Africa (read: the ANC) was a "victim" of Reagan's "constructive engagement" policies. (The same policy followed or encouraged by the Democrats in China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.)

The same sanctions policies being encouraged by the Left against South Africa in the '80's were decried as genocidal in Iraq in the '90's. But of course that didn't occur to Blitzer.

I really believe that very few news readers have the requisite analytic skills to determine why things happen in the world.

A few weeks ago, the CNN morning anchor woman interviewed a teenager who had won the National Geography Bee. His correct answer was "Khyber Pass". She expressed astonishment that he had ever heard of the Khyber Pass. He replied that Afghanistan had been in the news, what with the war and everything. She looked chagrin as she thought about it. Unbelievable.

Rudyard Kipling must be spinning in his grave.

Media realizing they got Reagan wrong? "Dawn breaks on Marblehead", as they say in Massachusetts.

I saw that exchange on CNN, and though I hate to burst anyone's bubble of expectation that they might actually be "getting it", the fact of the matter is the exchange lasted only about 30 seconds before groupthink set back in with "but there were problems" or something to that effect.

Face it they will never get it. Not ever.

The media's "getting it" seemed mostly to consist of stunned "my god they really liked him" exclamations regarding the American public. The media out of touch with the "man on the street"? Let me die of shock.