This process has failed miserably in the past years in which the Bush Administration has broken virtually every tenet and moral principle upon which the Republic was founded. The fundamental principles of jurisprudence, including the Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure, the Fifth Amendment prohibiting forced self incrimination, First Amendment involving privacy and rights of free speech and association and the due process right of Habeas Corpus have been abridged or denied. The press has failed to aggressively expose each of these transgressions and failed to challenge the Administration’s efforts to conceal and suppress the information that existing laws require to be made public.
The principle that the Armed Forces are to be deployed only for legitimate purposes to protect and defend the citizens of the United States and its allies has been violated by the unilateral invasion of Iraq when no actual threat to the United States or any ally existed. The country is ensnared in a fiasco that has lasted longer than World War II and has cost the country more financial resources than any war in the history of the nation. More than 4,000 service members have died, and the number rises each month. Estimates of over 300,000 service members have suffered physical or serious mental impairment as a result of the continuing conflict. All this has occurred without clear legal justification of the invasion or the grounds for continued presence. The Bush Administration is attempting to bypass Congress and to negotiate agreements that would obligate the United States to maintain a presence in Iraq after Bush leaves office. Not until recently have such under-the-table dealings been exposed by the press.
The obligation of the Executive Branch and the responsibility of Congress to oversee the public fisc have been largely abandoned during the past 5-6 years. Reports now coming to light prove that the US Government has been defrauded of billions of dollars by contractors who took the money and failed to perform the contract obligations. Many of those contracts were given to political cronies of the Bush Administration without competitive bidding. Rampant abuse of the supply systems has been revealed with supplies intended for the troops being diverted and sold on the black market. In one recent revelation, major supply items were diverted and returned to the US for sale on E-Bay. During this time, Congress has repeatedly opened the national “checkbook” and repeatedly poured billions of dollars more into this sewer of corruption without the most basic functions of audit and oversight. Whether the public would support this type of massive corruption if given the objective facts is unknown, because the facts have been largely hidden or obscured.
Blogs like this one, which lack the resources and exposure to effectively inform the public, are poor substitutes to supply the public need for learning about and debating the problems that are threatening the democracy of the United States. The traditional “Fourth Estate” is now concentrated in the hands of the large corporate interests, many of which are allied with the corporate cronies that are profiting from the pervasive corruption. Even the New York Times organization has reluctantly acknowledged its failure to aggressively follow and expose stories of fraud and corruption by the Bush Administration. Fox news is little more than a press and publicity agent for the Bush Administration and cannot be relied upon for balanced news. The major networks have been converted into “infotainment” organizations where spin and shock value are far more important than truth and reliability. And the greatest tragedy seems to be that there is no end in sight for the deterioration and collapse of one of the fundamental pillars of a free and democratic society – a free and independent press.
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