Over the last seven years, the lu-natic fringe in control of the Repub-lican Party--the people who believe in torture but don't believe in evolu-tion--have hijacked our democracy, aided and abetted by the news media. The heart of the problem is not the bias of Fox News or the blowhards on AM talk radio but a mainstream me-dia that has completely internalized how the right frames all political de-bate. The right-wing message has become a part of the news media's DNA.
過去七年來，控制共和黨瘋狂的偏激分子，那群寧可相信刑求也不相信進化的人，他們在媒體助紂為虐、搧風點火下，劫持我們的民主。問題的核心不在福斯電視新聞立場偏頗，或調頻電台脫口秀的吹牛名嘴，而是主流媒體內部已經完全同化吸收所有政論節目的正確架構。右翼的訊息已經成為新聞媒體的DNA。
The latest confirmation came with this week's announcement that Tony Snow, formerly a host at Fox News and press secretary for the White House, where he earned high marks as a gifted purveyor of Bush/Cheney propaganda, would be joining CNN as a commentator. I guess Karl Rove was too busy with his Newsweek gig and Bill Kristol with his New York Times column.
本周宣布，前福斯新聞台節目主持人和白宮新聞秘書史諾，將加入CNN成為該台評論員，再次證實此一趨勢。史諾在白宮時，以布希和錢尼才華洋溢的包裝宣傳師，獲得很高的評價。我想，布希的長期顧問羅夫太忙於「新聞周刊」的演出，而克里斯托也正忙著寫紐約時報的專欄。
Certainly other White House in-siders, such as William Safire and George Stephanopoulos, have made the leap to TV and print news. But this current crop remains unabashed propagandists. By embracing them, the mainstream media have revealed a mile-wide streak of self-loathing.
當然，白宮其他消息靈通人士，像沙斐爾和史泰芬諾普勒斯，也都跳槽到電視和平面媒體。但目前這批仍不脫忝不知恥的政策宣傳家。主流媒體如果擁抱他們，徒然顯示他們如何作賤自己。
Have they been so cowed by the Republicans' relentless branding of them as "liberal" that they feel com-pelled to sleep with the enemy Make no mistake, Rove, Kristol and Snow are the enemies of honesty, truth, facts, reality and the public's right to know.
他們是因為共和黨無所不用其極，威脅要給他們貼上「自由派」標籤，而被迫和敵人共枕嗎？別搞錯了，羅夫、克里斯托和史諾是誠信、真理、事實、真相和民眾知權利的敵人。
Rove's commitment to deception is legendary. His entire career as a GOP shot-caller was built on it. Kristol, Dan Quayle's chief of staff in the first Bush administration, is neoconser-vatism's crown prince. As editor of the Weekly Standard, he was a prime pusher of invading Iraq, and his claims about the war's progress have been discredited again and again. His re-ward: a column in Time magazine in 2006-07, and then this year a con-servative slot on the Gray Lady's Op-Ed page.
羅夫搞欺瞞早已聲名在外，他整個身為共和黨發號司令官的事業都建立在這上面。克里斯托則是布希政府第一任任內副總統奎爾的幕僚長，他是新古典主義的準掌門人。身為「標準周刊」總編輯，他是出兵伊拉克的主力推手，而他所聲稱戰爭的斬獲，一而再、再而三使他自己信用掃地。他的酬庸：2006-07年擔任時代雜誌專欄作家，今年更在紐約時報民意論壇版占有保守派一席之地。
Now CNN, the self-anointed "most trusted name in news," has thrown its arms around Snow and handed him its international mega-phone. Are the cable network's execs suffering from collective amnesia Do they not remember the extremely distant relationship Snow had with the truth during his time as President Bush's mouthpiece Because, in the end, the crux of this problem isn't Snow. It's the people who hired him --and Kristol and Rove--and their reasons for doing so.
現在，CNN這個自詡是「最可信的新聞品牌」，也熱情擁抱史諾，還把國際新聞的麥克風交給他。這家有線電視新聞網的主管是否得了集體失憶症？難道他們不記得，史諾擔任布希總統喉舌時，他發布的消息距離事實真相有多遠？因為，追根究柢，這個問題的關鍵不在史諾，而在雇用他，還有克里斯托和羅夫的人，以及他們這麼做的原因。
The prerequisite for any TV pun-dit is credibility. Viewers won't agree with every opinion expressed, but they do need to trust that it's an hon-est opinion, not some prepackaged PR line cooked up in the White House to keep us in the dark. That was always Snow's specialty--along with a dismissive glibness that made him the poster child for the Bush ad-ministration's brand of Callous Con-servatism.
任何電視權威人士的必要條件是信用。觀眾不見得會同意你說的每一個論點，但他們的確需要相信，那是誠信的意見，而不是什麼白宮杜撰並預先包裝好的公關稿，要把我們全部蒙在鼓裡。但那就是史諾的專長，再加上令人不齒的油腔滑調，使他成為布希政府冷酷無情的保守主義招牌的樣板。
When the U.S. death toll in Iraq hit 2,500 in June 2006, Snow com-memorated the news by saying "It's a number." When it was announced that in order to have enough troops for the "surge," a number of U.S. brigades would have to forgo the customary training in the Mojave Desert, Snow shrugged it off: "Well, but they can get desert training else-where, like in Iraq."
2006年6月，當美軍在伊拉克死亡人數達到2500人時，史諾提到這則新聞，只說「這只是個數字。」當軍方宣布，為了要有足夠的部隊「增兵」，美國有幾支旅得放棄按慣例在莫哈維沙漠進行的訓練，史諾冷漠的聳聳肩說：「哎呀，他們也可以在其他地方接受沙漠訓練，像伊拉克。」
Snow regularly displayed a gift for obfuscating rhetoric. In August 2006, faced with a rash of bombings and killings that had left 3,400 Iraqi civil-ians dead, Snow insisted that "there is not a civil war going on." Instead, he chalked the carnage up to "a number of sectarian violence operations going on."
史諾經常展現他最拿手的混淆視聽策略。2006年8月，面對一連串突發性轟炸和殺戮，造成3400名伊拉克平民喪生，史諾堅稱，「沒有發生內戰。」相反的，他把這場大屠殺說成「正進行一些宗派暴力鬥爭。」
And he never let little things like the facts get in the way of his mission. In September 2006, just days after a Senate report unequivocally conclud-ed there had been no prewar rela-tionship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab Zar-qawi, Snow insisted that such a rela-tionship did exist, continuing to falsely link the Iraqi dictator to 9/11 --evidence be damned.
他絕不容鐵的事實這些瑣事，阻止他完成任務。2006年9月就在參院一份報告明確總結，海珊和凱達恐怖分子札格威，戰前沒有任何關係之後沒幾天，史諾堅稱，這種關係的確存在，並繼續誤把伊拉克獨裁者和9/11掛鉤，去他的證據吧。
Misinformation accomplished.
錯誤的消息已圓滿達成。
（取材自紐約時報）