{"id":20041,"date":"2017-02-27T16:05:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T16:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20041"},"modified":"2017-02-27T16:05:24","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T16:05:24","slug":"w-free-press-is-indispensable-to-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20041","title":{"rendered":"‘W’: Free press is ‘indispensable to democracy’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Maybe you remember the bumper stickers with President George W. Bush’s face on them, with the caption: Do you miss him?<\/p>\n

The message was meant as a dig at President Barack H. Obama.<\/p>\n

Well, I didn’t miss him then<\/em>. I do miss him now <\/em>that a new president is in charge … and who’s decided to wage open war against the media.<\/p>\n

President Bush said on “Today” that a free and strong media are “indispensable to democracy.”<\/p>\n

Trump doesn’t grasp <\/a>the notion that the media play a critical role in assuring that public officials — even the president of the United States — always stay on the straight and narrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. \u2026 Power can be very addictive,\u201d he told NBC\u2019s \u201cToday.” Do you think?<\/em><\/p>\n

George W. Bush is among a handful of men who have held\u00a0those reins of power. He did so for two terms. While his record is a mixed one, he always seemed to\u00a0comprehend the limits inherent in the power of the presidency.<\/p>\n

Two presidents later, we have a guy in the White House who is trying to manipulate the media in ways most of\u00a0never have seen. He seeks to shut out major media organizations from press briefings; he seeks to curry favor with “friendly reporters”; he blasts reporters and organizations openly for being “dishonest” and purveyors of what he calls “fake news.”<\/p>\n

The First Amendment guarantees a “free press.” It prohibits the government from interfering in the media’s effort to do their duty.<\/p>\n

Trump doesn’t get it. President Bush does<\/em> get it. “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account,\u201d\u00a0“W” said.<\/p>\n

Do I miss the 43rd president?<\/p>\n

Yes. I do.<\/p>\n\n

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Maybe you remember the bumper stickers with President George W. Bush’s face on them, with the caption: Do you miss him? The message was meant as a dig at President Barack H. Obama. Well, I didn’t miss him then. I do miss him now that a new president is in charge … and who’s decided … Continue reading ‘W’: Free press is ‘indispensable to democracy’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,14],"tags":[540,1424,1738,1812,1899,5043],"class_list":["post-20041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-donald-trump","tag-first-amendment","tag-free-press","tag-george-w-bush","tag-us-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20043,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20041\/revisions\/20043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}