Practically the minute Bush stole the 2000 election, our national news media have happily reduced themselves to stenographers, jotting down whatever comes out of the white house PR office.  They cheerfully swallowed all the lies that led to the Iraq war, looked the other way as his henchmen blew the cover of a CIA agent for political revenge, and ignored one republican corruption scandal after another.  The slow steady relentless erosion of our civil liberties is something the TV talking heads just can’t be bothered to pay attention too.  Here’s what’s going on during the Democratic convention, via a Dave Barry column that’s both funny and sad all at once…

7:48 – Through intense effort I manage to surge maybe eight feet, where the path is blocked by a TV network that has set up a platform on the floor so its reporters can report on the convention by talking to each other with their backs to the actual convention. There is huge excitement in the surge as people catch glimpses of both Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer, who are, in this environment, the Beatles. The surgers all stop, whip out cell phones and take pictures of the backs of the heads of people who are taking pictures of the backs of the heads of people who might actually be getting direct visual shots of Anderson and Wolf. It is a lifetime convention memory.

So…reporting from the middle of the democratic convention, in the last days of one of the most destructive presidencies ever…a president who has all but publicity torn up and crapped on the bill of rights, the Geneva Convention, and Habeas Corpus among other things….most of the TV news media chatter is about…themselves.  Its like the process of electing a president is all about them.  Its like nothing Bush has done over the past eight years to destroy our constitution matters a whit to them.

So the following cheered me up…somewhat.  Of course they’ll never do this sort of thing during the republican convention…

ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors

Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel. 

Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit. 

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker’s neck, then twisted the producer’s arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.

Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.

Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.

The sheriff’s officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later, he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.

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It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.

During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, "You’re lucky I didn’t knock the f..k out of you."

Eslocker was released late today after posting $500 bond.

Schedenfraude.  It’s like German chocolate cake for the soul…