US tied with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga, yet Idahoans continue to decry the "liberal" media.

Since 2002, Reporters Without Borders has rated freedom of the press in 168 nations. That year, the U.S. ranked 17th. The 2006 index shows the U.S. to be in 53rd place, shared with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga.

In a February 2006 article, Timothy Karr wrote, “The tab for the fleecing and flogging of Americans comes to at least $1.6 billion. That's the amount seven Bush administration agencies spent from 2003 through mid-2005 on hundreds of contracts with advertising agencies, PR firms, and individuals, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday.”

Those who continue to play the “Liberal Media” record can’t look much further than Fox News, because if they were interested in the truth there are still places it can be found. But by 2008, the Government Accountability Office will probably be gone because its very name is an anathema (look it up) to this administration.

Sometimes I wonder how all of these talking heads can continue to spit out the lies and consciously avoid the truth that should be the goal of a trustworthy fourth estate. Then I remember the ownership.

Doubtless, Bushco would label Justice Hugo Black treasonous for his interpretation of the first amendment as regards press freedom.

"In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people...paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell." Hugo Black, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Sharon Metcalf
Gooding