In the US media, a mission to explain has been replaced by a mission to avoid - Henry Porter - The Guardian, Saturday June 4 2005
Snip:
In many other ways, recalling Watergate this week emphasises how times have changed, and I am afraid present values in the US media are not shown in an especially good light. Since 9/11, when the heroic fortitude of America was at its most visible, the Bush administration has gradually contrived to cast all criticism and investigation into its activities as unpatriotic and an obstruction to its jihad against Islamist terrorism. Few cross the line in the White House, where a wary and unforgiving regime - not unlike that run by Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman for Richard Nixon - ensures that leaks are very rare indeed. Much the same atmosphere of fear and obedience obtains in the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld and at the justice department, though less so at the state department and CIA.