From Russia With…Well, Whatever

Apparently Vladimir Putin is a bit hazy on how things work here in the U.S., and made a comment to President Bush about “when you fired those CBS journalists”. Someone should really tell him about something called the First Amendment. [That being said, however, can you imagine an America with no MSM? Be still, my heart!]

Oh, wait. Sunnye, over at GOPInsight, already did.

…We have people here called “bloggers,” who tend to check the facts reported by our news media since we’ve had uncomfortable surprises from newspaper, magazine and TV reporting sources before.

Bloggers tend to be very, very careful about what they print. We have to be. We are responsible for what we write and our reputations depend on accuracy. We don’t have big money conglomerations to say they “stand behind” us like professional reporters do. So we check things pretty carefully.

When CBS news and Dan Rather reported lies and insisted on calling them “truth,” Internet bloggers just didn’t let them get away with it.

It wasn’t the government that fired CBSs staff — it was the People, exercising their freedom of speech through the resources of Internet blogging.

Vlady, m’dear — I don’t think you have the courage to allow that kind of thing in Russia. You might not have a job long if you did.

But we have a long and proud heritage of it here. It’s one of the ways we stay free.

Amen.

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