Controlling the message long ago became disnormal

I remember being impressed with how the Clinton War Room spun back so effectively in the '92 campaign, believing that the rapid-response team so adept at controlling the message had been in great part responsible for Clinton's election.

I also remember how Bill Clinton had mastered the on-camera confession, more or less owning up to Gennifer Flowers on 60 Minutes and sorta kinda admitting he had avoided the draft in Vietnam, kinda sorta on principle.

We could trust a man who was able to own up to his shortcomings. Too bad he lost that during the heady days of Monica. Oh well.

Nowadays message control has reached its Rovian zenith, making George Orwell's Newspeak appear more visionary than ever. It's easy for me to call this message maniputation disnormal rather than evil, because humor should trump hyperbole. Still, that doesn't excuse the behavior of the current adminstration and its thought police.

It's a shame that the media has been weakened at a time when we need them the most, although it seems they've stepped up, regained their voice -- and courage -- recently. It's almost as if the media dare only be as strong as the Bushlings are weak. That's a weird paradigm.

For hope to really ring out the media has to grab hold of this newly found courage and ride it until it reclaims its preeminence in the reality-based world. We need a strong, vocal, gutsy press now more than ever.

Will it come back? Will it survive the shifting sands of technology, audience taste and profit-driven corporate balance sheets?