Shout Out to Salon

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Despite its "I told you so tone," "TUOL" recommends reading Gene Lyons' "The media can't handle the truth" in Salon (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/08/27/lyons/). Column takes mainstream press to task for gullibility in its "shock" over political untruths from the Bush Administration, such as Homestead Security honcho Tom Ridge's recent revelations concerning pressure from Vice President Cheney and others to ratchet up the terrorism alert levels on his pantone protection chart for politically motivated reasons. Lyons heaps praise on skeptical bloggers--such as himself--who doubted Colin Powell's WMD pitch to the U.N., Condi Rice's "no warning about 9/11" claim, and on and on.

Lyons' condemnation of the play-it-safe herd mentality of the Washington press corps and punditry pales in comparison to Upton Sinclair, author of  the muckraking expose about the press, The Brass Check (1919), and quoted by Lyons. Sinclair said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."