Mainstream Media Knows It's Being Used

You know how it works, you've been there before. You stay late to watch the band, you give the drummer that look. You know... the one that Nala gives Simba near the beginning of the first Lion King movie. You've been practicing it daily since you saw the movie.

You finally catch his eye, stumble out of the club together, and slip down the alley way between a dumpster and a beat up Cutlass. Under a moonless night sky, you do things with him that your mother can't pronounce and things you'll be too embarrassed to tell your best friend. Afterwards, he tells you that he must go, as his girlfriend is waiting for him.

"You know you're being used, but in a way you kind of like it."

During the June 18 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Gloria Borger,
a CBS News contributor and U.S. News & World Report contributing editor,
acknowledged that the media "are suckers" because of their coverage of
President Bush's surprise June 13 trip to Iraq. Adding that "[w]e do
like these secret trips," Borger concluded: "[Y]ou know you're being used,
but in a way you kind of like it because it's good pictures."

They lure you in with promises of fame and fortune, pleasure and pain. Even from the beginning, you know how it's going to end. You're encouraging the lies, savoring the deceit and gleefully lapping up each and every last drop of subterfuge. But you do it anyway for those fleeting tingles, hoping and praying that your actions don't hurt our flailing democracy or, heaven forbid give you another one of those nasty infections.