He Who Controls the Pres, er, the Press . . .

I wonder if smokers will get second-hand treatment under national health care because of their unhealthy habit.

And isn't it considerably curious that our nations top notch journalists, crack investigators, and world class publications that publicized, analyzed, and castigated every peccadillo of Presdient George W. Bush, has not seen fit to publish a single photo of President Barack Hussein Obama, the health care champion, smoking a cigarette?

Of the handful I have been able to find on the web, as evidenced by the two I have posted here, they are all rather obviously photoshopped.

Journalists are sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate because they are supposedly the guardians of the truth on behalf of the estate of the Citizenry. The idea is that they protect the Citizenry by keeping the estates of Church and Government honest as they report and expose abuses of power, instances of hypocricy, public lies and miscellaneous chicanery in their dealings with the common folk.

Author Oscar Wilde wrote:
"In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism."

Caveat emptor.

Be very, very vigilant in what you buy from the media, folks.