We can all agree that historical understandings of the dividing line between war and law enforcement do not fit well the kind of conflicts our nation faces today. But the solution to that quandary should not be to cede all discretion to an Executive that works in the shadows. There are other unaddressed needs at work, among them the imperative to cut the public in on the discussion and the decision-making.
It is tempting to view the stories told in [Eric] Boehlert’s two books, one chronicling the failure of the mainstream media to report the news and the other revealing the success of the blogs in doing so, as being parts of the same story. Maybe the mainstream media would not be failing from a business perspective were they not, most of the time, failing from a news-reporting perspective as well. Maybe the blogs would not be succeeding, albeit under their mostly profit-agnostic criteria, were they not beginning to seize the standard of bona fide reporting falling from the grasp of the mainstream media as they tumble lifeless upon the field of economic battle.