Hiring Bill Kristol by the NYTimes should come as no surprise to anyone considering the way the mainstream media have surrendered to the Bush administration's autocratic policies. With the general election coming up in less than a year from now we have seen the Republican right wing operatives and propaganda machine methodically worm their way into every major media outlet.

When G. W. Bush named Kevin Martin to head the FCC the Republican media takeover plan was inevitable. With little or no opposition from the Democrats, media giants can now implement their monopoly in controlling whatever news is disseminated for public digestion.

They now have a green light to own entire television networks, radio stations and newsprint in major metropolitan areas, key factors in the Republicans' strategy to win the presidency and even take back both houses of congress.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News and arch liberal-hater, is now the owner of the increasingly biased and partisan Wall Street Journal and he is close to finalizing the deal that will allow him to own the controlling interest of the WSJ parent company, Dow Jones.

This past November Newsweek magazine owners fortified their Republican-friendly editorial staff by hiring on one of the most vitriolic, inflammatory propagandists, Karl Rove, who undoubtedly will play a major role in Newsweek's influence on the 2008 election with his character smears and dirty tricks in this well planned out effort by Republicans to gain absolute dominance.

The New York Times, not to be outdone, proved much earlier that they were more than willing to shill for Bush's disastrous Iraq War when they fed the public a steady diet of misleading news stories penned by Judith Miller. Miller aided and abetted the Bush propaganda by promoting the false claim that Iraq possessed W.M.D.. Miller is gone now but the ultra right wing conservative, Bill Kristol, will fill her shoes quite well.

The transparency by the mainstream media to continue exalting the military industrial complex that Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against is proof positive that the Republicans have gotten all their ducks in order while Democrats and their pathetically impotent leaders, Nancy "Stepford Democrat" Pelosi and Harry "Walter Mitty" Reid, twiddle their thumbs.

There have been only weak complaints and criticism of Bush's unbelievable assaults against our U.S. Constitution by the mainstream media even as they stand by and watch our individual liberties and freedoms diluted and stripped away. G. W. Bush claims what his legal handlers assert are his unlimited, "inherent executive powers," most of which are endorsed and sanctified by the other arm of the Republican Party, the Judiciary.  

G. W. Bush's Star Chamber U.S. Supreme Court ruled that habeas corpus does not apply to detainees, either foreign or American citizens, if they are held and incarcerated under the Military Commissions Act. The current makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court is composed of a phalanx of activist, partisan, right wing ideologues, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia (RATS) + one so-called swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, who accede to practically all of Bush's demands and ruled that those held in the Guantanamo Bay prison have no rights whatsoever. 

Apparently, even in this egregious overreach of executive authority, the mainstream media have acquiesced in the settled opinion that the military court system is exempt from and outside of, any and all laws on which our U.S. Constitutional system of justice was founded. That being the case, it is an ominous sign for any of our U.S. military who may be unfortunate enough to be captured and taken prisoner in future wars where our enemies will apply the same lawless standards.

Recently, the Bush administration demanded legislation that will grant legal immunity, even retroactively, to telecommunications companies that are slapped with privacy suits for spying on American citizens and intercepting private telephone and Internet conversations without a court-ordered warrant or reasonable cause to do so. Maybe this edict has had its desired effect in intimidating and cowing the mainstream media whose reporters and writers could well be fingered by G. W. Bush as "enemy combatants."

A couple of weeks ago G. W. Bush threw a tantrum when he found out that the New York Times suggested that White House officials were instrumental in the CIA's destruction of the prisoner interrogation and waterboarding torture tapes. Bush demanded that they retract that contention and amend the story. Apparently, it worked. In a total act of contrition and capitulation, the New York Times editors hired on Bill Kristol, hoping to mollify the miffed G. W. Bush.   

Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and chairman and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century, "led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory."

Kristol, in his new role as a weekly columnist, will be reforming the New York Times in shaping the 2008 election. Like the editors of Newsweek, the New York Times editors seem to be willing converts as they bulk up their staffs with these insidious Republican smear mongers and henchmen. 

The Fourth Estate was once a beacon of truth for the people and a watchdog over politicians who abuse their power and breach the public trust. What happened?

  
Richard A. Stitt

Austin, Texas