the media is a critical part of this debate, and it is because of the media's failures that this debate is even necessary.
in a healthy democracy, the media's role should be that of a watchdog - challenging and adversarial, because that is the only thing that keeps government even slightly honest. the US media rolled over like sick sheep after 9/11, didn't ask the hard questions when Bush was selling us a war we didn't need, was too afraid of looking unpatriotic and basically allowed the adminstration to dictate the terms of the debate.... and look where that has gotten us.
Mazer's logic is an extension of this mindset: criticism is unpatriotic and divisive, questioning the war and how we got there hurts the troops, editorial dissent is propaganda etc. this is the same mentality that allowed us to get swept into this arguably illegal, certainly foolish, and apparently unwinnable war in the first place. by questioning it, by investigating how we got there, by demanding some accountability from the leaders who misrepresented the material facts, then can lessons be learned from the catastrophic mistakes we have made.
the media doesn't create the problem - they only make people aware of it. this awareness is how things that are broken in a democracy get fixed.
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