Cheeblogger!

The latest blame game over the financial crisis triggered by the collapse of companies that invested heavily in sub-prime mortgages can be frustrating to understand. It need not be.

Follow up:

Despite recent demagoguery to the contrary, there are three entities that are mostly to blame: The Democrats, a few Republicans, and yes the Media. This was, by all accounts, preventable.

While this problem was intensifying below the radar where was the MEDIA? Bill O'Reilly, now raging on his radio show that everyone in Washington failed to act, never spoke up. He knows the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Politicians often behave in reaction to how people are reacting to the media. O'Reilly thinks congress is supposed to bring stuff to his attention?

The New York Times didn't wait until they got a formal press release from the CIA to start spilling the beans on our secret detention centers. They didn't wait until Bush held a press conference to have a slide show about Abu Grahib. Yet, everything about this situation was building entirely under the watchful eye of the media.

Where was the media when it comes to this crisis? Some point a to Jim Kramer's on-air mental breakdown as a media warning. He was laughed at as a "chicken little" and as an amusing subject for a YouTube video.

Here's the infuriating irony: The vaunted New York Times can effortlessly discover and report all manner of state secrets including secret CIA detention centers, Abu Grahib, secret warrantless wiretaps, and so on. All that stuff is supposed to be hard to find out and they did it effortlessly.

How about this financial crisis? All the information sits in the public domain on SEC websites and I can google warnings as far back as 1998. The "biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression" was just too boring and insignificant when we've got to cover the Aruba murder. What about that Florida flibbertigibbet that killed her daughter because she wanted to go out and party?

"When will they find Kaylee's body so this national nightmare can end?" Don't bother me with the wealth of nations tanking, where is that damned body.

What have they come to? Shame on you Bill O'Reilly. Shame on you Keith Olbermann. Shame on you 60 minutes.

"Looking out for the folks"? Bull. The media needs to suck it up and takes some of the blame for not enunciating the pitfalls of this folly to the American people.