Glenn notes how well the media is doing its job: In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by J
April 6, 2008

Glenn notes how well the media is doing its job:

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

"Yoo and torture" - 102

"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73

"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16

"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043

"Obama and Wright" -- More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

"Obama and patriotism" - 1,607

"Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079

The sad thing is that the mainstream press really does believe that things like Obama's poor bowling skills and the Clinton's tax returns are more important stories than, say, the trillion dollar war that continues to rage on with no end in sight or a collapsing economy. Like Glenn says, people care about the petty stuff because the media loves to tell themselves that they do.

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