Echo Chamber

One criticism of the Bush administration often repeated in the mainstream media is that he surrounds himself with 'yes' men, loyalists who refuse to give him a dissenting opinion. People close to Bush have strongly denied this is true, but let's just say that it is true. There's a couple things I find ironic.

1) Every major news outlet serves as the dissenting voice. Bush doesn't need anyone close to him to present a dissenting argument when the alphabet soups will see that the dissenting, aka liberal, view is always stated. (Ever wonder who decides which news outlets are prestigious? Isn't it automatically assumed that the NY Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and CNN are all "presitgious" sources of news, the "best" in the business? Isn't it curious that anything in the U.S. with a liberal tilt automatically gets a "pretigious" endowment? Think Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the Dixie Chicks winning 5 Grammys, etc.)

2) The east coast is very liberal, especially NYC and the surrounding areas, and D.C. Hollywood is also very liberal, no surprise there. Aren't these folks essentially guilty of what they accuse the Bush administration of? How often do the journalists in these cities try to surround themselves with dissenting voices? Don't they pretty much surround themselves with like-minded individuals? Watching the train wreck that is the View, Rosie can barely contain her rage at Elisabeth because Elisabeth has a dissenting view. These people may argue that they are not the President of the United States (although sometimes I think they forget that), but the fact remains they still have a huge influence on society, and therefore a responsibility that goes with it. Life in the "flyover" states is radically different than life in these elite liberal circles, but I don't see them wanting to understand us, rather it seems that they want us to change to their way of thinking. And maybe that is what is behind their critcisms of Bush.