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Presidents and the press — 10 Comments

  1. If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.
    –General William Tecumsah Sherman

    If you don’t read the newspapers you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.
    — Mark Twain

  2. “Actually, I disagree about what the “average person” would say. I don’t know what circles the author of that article moves in, but I’d estimate that maybe–maybe–about 10% of the population knows about those things. And I actually think that’s being generous.”

    You are right. That is being generous. Way too generous.

    And of the probably 2 percent of the college educated and politically involved who might be able to kind of place ex parte Merryman, Milligan, or Vallandigham, not half would care.

    http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=70018

    I’ve made a study of this, and even I have to refresh my memory and look things up after several years.

  3. A really outstanding post. Most bloggers point to one article and move on, this one excels with scholarship.

  4. Wooly Bully Says:
    March 29th, 2017 at 1:29 pm
    But Jefferson also wrote:

    “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

    https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-11-02-0047
    * *
    Perhaps the contradiction is removed by presuming that somewhere among the partisanship, hysteria, and fake news one can actually find REAL news with which the populace can confront an abusive government; with no newspapers, even that slim possibility disappears.

    Or if, as Jefferson believed, we can dispense with newspapers, then we can also dispense with (most) government.

  5. Well now, I guess I should have clicked on Neo’s links before spouting off what was nothing more than a repeat of the already noted.

    Sorry Neo.

  6. Unfortunately, the media is so saturated in our culture now they are impossible to avoid. We’re being hit with propaganda 24/7. And if not us, certainly those around us.

    And it’s seeped into the general culture – everything is political now.

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