Okay, now this pisses me off....

I watch Oprah, okay?? I admit it. This is not the first time I have addressed Oprah here at One for the Road, either...

I like her, and the show for the most part. And I think by in large she is entertaining and does a fair amount of good with what power she wields.

Today??

Not so much.

You see today, she had Frank Rich on promoting his new book The Greatest Story Ever Sold. By in large, I am perfectly fine with that.

It's her show. She can do what she wants.

But they presented today's show as a forum to really question the misinformation brought forth by our media and by our government.

Fine! I thought. That is a really good thing for people to be thinking about!

More people need to question and learn more about the things that are going on around us, and not simply depend on one or two sources (be it a daily paper, the ABC news, Fox, CNN, the Drudge Report, Boortz, the Daily Kos, the AP, or whatever). Questions are good!

And I think it is really important to really research and learn about what is going on! And then be more able to form ideas and opinions about what is happening.

Did Oprah's show showcase that??

Well, the short answer is NO. No it did not.

Instead, Frank Rich spent the entire hour, with audience participation (some of it quite good - with some excellent questions being asked), citing numerous instances of the current administration misleading the public up and into the Iraq War. Cites of government officials making the subtle case that Iraq/Saddam was involved in some way ith the planning of 9-11 (I think Dick Cheney got 4 mentions during the show), media involvement, Colin Powell's presentation before the U.N., etc...

*I* kept waiting for some mention of anything that the media itself had done to mislead Americans into following a pre-set agenda as well. Dan Rather's "fake but accurate" memo documenting George W. Bush's National guard service comes to mind. As do the doctored Reuters photos from the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.

Was any of this even mentioned???

NO. Not so much.

Just government misdirection.

Look. I really do believe that our government presents a great deal of information in a certain light to further an agenda. I do. It's been going on since governments were first formed - when Og (not the Og, of course) but when Og first asked his cave mates to make him head hunter, or whatever.

Everyone who agrees, please toss your official vote rock into the fire - try not to hit Og in either the nether regions or head. Those who know how to vote will be first in line for chow. Thank you...

But I *also* believe that most/all media outlets (including FOX, btw) do the same damn thing. To further their OWN agendas. Whether it be during an election... OR to make us believe/disbelieve that someone is guilty of a crime.

Hell, I would imagine garbage day pick-up stories have a spin - like it really fricking matters weather ithe trash gets taken away on Tuesday or Thursday! Somebody is bound to have an agenda somewhere... Blame the Unions or the Treehuggers or the Soccermoms. Doesn't really matter.

That's just the way of the media these days.

What I had hoped for out of the show, was that maybe the public should take it as a head's up. A notice to stop worrying so much about who's boinking who in Hollywood, who may or may not have had a boob job recently, or whether or not Bush is actually Satan.

Sit up.

Pay attention.

And for the love of Mike, don't believe any/all of the media hype about ANYTHING. It's all for ratings, folks.

Good news doesn't even make the news. And bad news or celebrity news - is all the news they really want to report.

Kim Jong Il blew up a nuke recently, did you hear?? And Iran really wants to play too... But until Kim the "Great Leader" Jong Il boinks Paris Hilton, I really don't expect to see a whole lot of serious mainline media bi-partisan coverage.

Not while we can still watch folks mentally masturbate about the wheres and whys of Mel Gibson's addiction, JonBenet Ramsey's supposed fake killer, and how we need to make amish schools safer...

Ain't gonna happen...

And that sucks. Thanks for nothin', Oprah...

Though to end of a positive note, Oprah's audience *did* give a standing ovation to an American service man recently returned from Iraq. Hooray!!!

A very well deserved standing O in spite of the fact that he stated that he and many of his brother's in arms were "laughing" at our (the U.S. and Europe's) media coverage of the war any chance they got to see it.

You see, he felt that they only wanted to highlight the bad things that were happening. Anywhere. At any given time. And he had a *different* view of the war - his dusty boots on the ground, so to speak.

Imagine that.