TOO KIND, MR. BUSH – AT 12:22 P.M. ET:   Former President George W. Bush has been making the rounds of interview shows, demonstrating his considerable decency.  However, his vigorous defense of the media on the Today Show left me disappointed.  Investors Business Daily notes how savagely the mainstreamers treated Bush, and accuses the former president, correctly, of being too soft on them.

Media Bias: President George W. Bush has issued a full-throated defense of the media's role in modern society. He's being way too generous.

"I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. … Power can be very addictive," Bush said in remarks on NBC's "Today."

"We need an independent media to hold people like me to account," he said.

Yes, we agree wholeheartedly. But he seemed to imply today's media were fulfilling that role. They aren't. And there's no better example than Bush's own two terms in office.

While we deeply admire the former president for not holding a grudge, the media spent much of Bush's eight years in office actively lying about what he was doing and what he was trying to do.

It's one thing to disagree with Bush on Iraq; even some conservative media outlets loudly criticized Bush's strategy, down to the very presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.

But the media consistently mischaracterized Bush's actions, and served as a willing mouthpiece for the "Bush lied, people died" mantra of the left that served to undermine the effort to end the Iraq War.

Likewise, the media outright lied about what happened during Hurricane Katrina, painting a picture of an out-of-touch, racist chief executive who didn't really care about the deaths of African Americans from the ravaging floodwaters.

They virtually ignored the massive rescue and aid effort that followed, while making up stories of savagery on the ground and rape and murder in the temporary storm shelter set up in Houston's Astrodome. Anything to make Bush look bad.

Then in 2008, during the election campaign, came the "Bush did it" finger pointing about the financial crisis.

The Bush administration was on record as early as 2001 warning about the excesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Democrats in Congress would have none of it, lambasting Bush and other Republicans as heartless tools of Wall Street.

COMMENT:  And there's more.  It's fine to reflect on the need for a free press, but wrong to remain silent in the face of press failure and distortion.  Those who revere a free press should be the first to be outraged by the state of the media today.

February 28, 2017