They Call This News?

I don't watch TV at home, but now and again I dine out at a restaurant or bar that has a television playing, volume muted, in the corner. One night this past week, I even managed to sit at a bar next to a TV that had the volume turned up. And this is where I noticed something weird about CNN News.

Every news story, one after another, was basically harping on the same theme: "The Bush Administration sucks." First they thoroughly canvassed the topic of one congressman's crusade to impeach Vice President Cheney, on the grounds that Cheney lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in order to trick the U.S. into invading Iraq.

Then there was a story following up on recent incidents of contaminated food getting past government inspectors and making people, or even pets (in the latest case), sick. Seven dogs and cats die and it's a national crisis. CNN editorialized on this event by saying that America's "food supply is broken." And, wouldn't you know, just when we need more government food inspectors, the Bush Administration has been firing FDA officials. So clearly, Bush doesn't care.

Then there was a story about the Attorney General. Democrats, and even some Republicans, are calling for his resignation because he fired eight U.S. attorneys. Hardly anyone remarked when Bill Clinton fired ninety-some U.S. attorneys and replaced them with his appointees, but now that a Republican administration is doing the same thing (on a much smaller scale), it suddenly stinks of dirty politics.

Maybe CNN should drop the charade of reporting news and "come out of the closet" as propaganda instrument for the Democratic Party. Because after a whole dinner of hearing nothing from CNN except variations on the theme "The Bush Administration sucks," I had to ask: didn't something happen in the world, all day, besides the Bush Administration sucking?