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The press most certainly should have gone after Johnson.Up until the Vietnam era, the press was squarely on the side of the US, had been that way since World War II and before. Also, personal shenanigans like Kennedy's flings that would kill a politician today were hushed up.
The handling of the Vietnam war was an abomination, and the Great Society programs left permanent multi generational cripples.When someone rhapsodizes about the Great Society, I remind them that the same impulses that animated its programs were the same ones that brought about our involvement in Vietnam; it's no coincidence they happened simultaneously. Back then there was the idea that you could solve any problem of human existence by funding and staffing a federal government program. Same as in Vietnam, if you could just get enough boots on the ground you could conquer any enemy, especially one stuck in the Stone Age. Ten years later, both were a disaster with the country in 1975 in the third year of the worst recession since World War II including double digit inflation and unemployment at the same time, and defeat in Vietnam when half a million men couldn't defeat the enemy because of micro-management from Washington and no real plan for victory. It was really the beginning of the huge divide that exists to this day.
So maybe some of the older posters can share when the major media outlets moved from center to center left
www.youtube.com/embed/ZblPwNLH6hg
Caught this on you tube. Rickles doesn't swear once. He praises the Democrat(I don't know about at the time of this roast, but Rickles was a Republican towards the end of his life for sure). He says Reagan would have done the same.
I was too young for sure, but I do know that the media crucified Reagan. I've read some of the articles. To the best of my knowledge, they didn't do that to Carter or Ford, but I was really too young at that time. My dad was a Democrat at that time, and thought Carter was an honest man, but also had some choice words about him.
The press most certainly should have gone after Johnson. What a disaster for this nation. The handling of the Vietnam war was an abomination, and the Great Society programs left permanent multi generational cripples. I suspect they did not. I suspect Nixon was a tipping point, but I don't know for sure.
I do know the media/entertainment industry also went after George HW Bush pretty hard, and the right lit into Dukakis unfairly, painting him as out of touch, and then Bill Clinton fiercely, when he probably didn't deserve it(and worst of all his major failings...NAFTA, the war in Kosovo, and failing to stop Bin Laden went mostly without criticism by the main stream).
Now its just a joke. None of the cable news run everything newsworthy and no one presents it fairly, not even CBS, ABC, NBC. Certainly not the NYT or WaPo. Its so clear that CNN is non stop propaganda, yet there are still lefties that claim its a fair presentation of the news. I've found my best resources to be CSPAN, USA Today, and compilation sites like Drudge and Real Clear Politics. It stinks that outside the local news, I cant turn on the tv and get something resembling reports by journalists.
So maybe some of the older posters can share when the major media outlets moved from center to center left and now simply to presentation that willfully ignores important stories, and presents half truths as solid provable fact.