I Have Only 1 Complaint...

...why didn't you write this about a month before the election?

But, even late, Villainous Company is a marvel. She reaches back to 2003, and lays out, AGAIN, the plan for Iraq, which the Democrats agreed to, as did the majority of the country.

The Web is an amazing thing. 10 years ago, this wouldn't have happened. The opposing parties would have been free to re-construct history, without interference. The major papers and TV stations would have been free to spin their stories without fear of contradiction.

Today, we, the people, can go into the Wayback Machine, and check out history's trail for ourselves. Just the other day, I found a link to the Pentagon Papers - remember them? They were the smoking gun that PROVED that the president LIED, LIED, LIED.

Or did they? The following is from the Wall Street Journal

Journalist Edward Jay Epstein has shown that in crucial respects, the Times coverage was at odds with what the documents actually said. The lead of the Times story was that in 1964 the Johnson administration reached a consensus to bomb North Vietnam at a time when the president was publicly saying that he would not bomb the north. In fact, the Pentagon papers actually said that, in 1964, the White House had rejected the idea of bombing the north. The Times went on to assert that American forces had deliberately provoked the alleged attacks on its ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a congressional resolution supporting our war efforts. In fact, the Pentagon papers said the opposite: there was no evidence that we had provoked whatever attacks may have occurred.

In short, a key newspaper said that politicians had manipulated us into a war by means of deception. This claim, wrong as it was, was part of a chain of reporting and editorializing that helped convince upper-middle-class Americans that the government could not be trusted.

We bloggers have an opportunity that has not existed before this time - the ability to fact-check with no cost except our time. Unlike amateur pundits of previous eras, we have powers that have the ability to transform our society. We can take the long-held Liberal Dream of "Power to the People", and USE IT.

The newspapers are dying. The TV Empire isn't very far behind. They only hang on now by their toenails, pushing shlock shows, trash TV, and gossip.

As they used to say on The X-Files - "the truth is out there" - so, what are you waiting for?

Go get it.