Ministry of Screwheads

Washington, District of Columbia
38°53' North; 77°02 West


Sometime during his first term Richard Nixon instructed hatchet man Charles 'Tex' Colson to develop a list of enemies to be, in his best Tricksonian vernacular, "screwed". The list quickly grew to upwards of 600 evildoers. You might think that it was filled to bursting with foreign dictators, commies, thugs, and killers.

Not so.

For example, Paul Newman has said that his inclusion on the list is one of his greatest accomplishments.

Apparently Daniel Schorr is also pretty proud of having been number 17, as is made clear by this modern day reminscence:

"(recently) I was able to see, for the first time, the single most electrifying moment in my career. It was a videotape of me as a CBS News correspondent reporting from the Senate Watergate Committee hearings. Having been handed the first list of 20 White House "enemies," I read the names live on camera without having even scanned them beforehand. At No. 17, I came to "Schorr, Daniel, Columbia Broadcasting System, Washington, A real media enemy."

I remember that day (or at least the videotape) in which Schorr ran out onto the Capitol steps and read out a bit of fascism so venal that no one, not even a 14 year old kid in the wilds of not-quite-yet Canuckistan, could ever again doubt that Nixon's administration was rotten to the core.

I also remember the reaction of many, many, many people that weren't on the list.

They were outraged.

Now, I have no doubt that the current group running the Screwhead Ministry has generated vast multitudes of Enemies Lists that stretch farther and wider than anything described in Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land' (and probably stretches back into the graves of long gone folk singers that scribbled 'this machine kills fascists' on their guitars).

And clearly, one of the tragedies of our age is the fact that so many politicos and journos are doing their very best to not end up on one of the intertwined multitudes lest it roughen their oh so smoothened lives.

And until recently I was convinced Daniel Schorr had turned his back on truth and had become one of those chronic list avoiders.

After all, these days Schorr's highest profile gig is his Saturday morning to and fro with Scott Simon on NPR. Almost without fail it's a bland, banal excercise in political tightrope walking in which both participants occasionally stick out a hand or a leg but never, ever take a real chance at stepping out into the abyss.

All of which I find extremely disappointing because I've admired the work of both Simon and Schorr in the past.

But this week Schorr surprised a lot of people when he pulled a Helen Thomas in the pages of the CS Monitor.

"Washington these days feels a little like Moscow in Soviet times when the government routinely dispensed information to the public and the public routinely didn't believe it. The two main newspapers were the Communist Party organ, Pravda, (Truth) and the Soviet government organ, Izvestiya (News). People used to say, "There is no Izvestiya in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestiya."

Schorr then really takes it to the Screwheads and focusses on three specific examples of Willful Truthlessness: fairytale WMDs as a pretext for war; fake journalists bamboozling the public about anti-public programs; and the buying of supposedly not fake journalists to bamboozle the public about anti-public programs.

All of which, in our minds at least, is a devastating indictment of America's so-called free press. But we're not so sure that Schorr has cleared out all that muck from his eyes, or that fear from his heart, quite yet.

Because at the end he asks:

"How did we ever get to this point?"

To which we, and we're pretty sure Jon Stewart too, would answer - isn't it obvious?

____
Update: Lawrence, over at The Orchid, has an excellent real time analysis of the situation.
Double Secret Probation Update: The Revolution may not be televised but it sure as heck is being blogged.... from the Bradblog pointed out to us by sukabi at ASZ and Michael H at Spontanteous Arising, here are the pictures of nuttin' much happenin' according to the media trusts .
Ultra Super Duper Secret Update: Kate Storm has even more sinister reasons to believe that if you're in Washington you just might be Back in the USSR.