A fawning media yields many unhappy consequences, including the loss of concern among government officials that their crimes will be correctly contextualized for presentation to the public. They need not worry, because the corporte media has contracted the same disease infecting politicians: a malignant inability to identify with the public.

Poor George Tenet: he’s worried about his reputation. In another world, he might be worried that he participated in a criminal deception that destroyed a country of 24 million and gotten hundreds of thousands killed.