Subject: Media Whores in Tom Jefferson's time

       BC:
       Here's a quote from a letter Thomas Jefferson sent to G.K. van Hogendorp, October 13, 1785,
concerning the reluctance of the British to speak well of the recently victorious Americans:

       "The British government as you may naturally suppose have it much
at heart to reconcile their nation to the loss of America. This is essential to
the repose, perhaps even the safety of the King & his ministers. The most
effectual engines for this purpose are the public papers. You know well that
the government always kept a kind of standing army of news writers who
without any regard to truth, or to what should be like truth, invented & put
into the papers whatever might serve the minister. This suffices with the mass
of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true
paragraphs of a newspaper. When forced to acknolege (sic) our independance
they were forced to redouble their efforts to keep the nation quiet. Instead of a
few of the papers formerly engaged, they now engaged every one. No paper
therefore comes out without a dose of paragraphs against America."

Hmm....didn't know that Ari "Pinnocchio" Fleisher (he of the growing nose)
and Karl "Goebbels" Rove were around 200+ years ago.

Substitute "liberals" for "America" and we find that nothing has changed in all that time.