Young blogger Jeremiah Lewis can’t get up much excitement for the unmasking of Deep Throat, identifying himself with the apathy of the iPod generation and casting doubts on Mark Felt’s hero status. But the media lovefest since the old man admitted his (hopefully) one common trait with the porn industry has gotten Lewis thinking about what we’ll really take from history – and what we’ll overlook:
I suspect that history is being shaped, and has been since before the war started, to paint it in rather a more subtle light, one that doesn’t fall quite as kindly on the overthrowers. Oh sure, Saddam’s a monster and all, but what about due process? What about sovereignty? What about blood for oil? These are the questions that will resonate in text books, and teachers will give knowing glances about the room at the young, impressionable kids learning all this stuff for the first time as they talk about Bush and his controversial policies, his questionable win of two Presidential terms, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
This is how history is remembered, and like Woodward and Bernstein and the remainder of the media whose watchful eye on events has certainly done its part in structuring viewpoints, the media will congratulate itself years from now, when democracy has indeed become firmly rooted in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ll write articles remembering the good they did in exposing the truth in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
As he goes on to say, there’s nothing wrong with that. Nonetheless: “The press sees the dust and mothballs and mouse droppings as an indication of our collective condition. When you’re pawing through your history chest, what do you see?”
I’m a tech journalist who’s making a TV show about a college newspaper.