Remember the days when news agencies claimed they were the fourth estate? Remember when they claimed to be “objective” and pretended at being separate from the controlling power in Washington D.C.? Apparently that whole claim has proven somewhat chimeric if the several stories we’ve detailed this week are any indication. And now, to add to the gathering evidence that the Old Media are actively joining Team Obama and the political left, comes CNN to hawk a new line of Obama T-Shirts. So much for being objective. So much for staying above joining a political campaign.

Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press was alerted by one of her readers to CNN’s participation in Barack Obama’s permanent political campaign with its new capitalist venture. CNN’s headline shirts, where CNN fans can pick from various CNN headlines and have them emblazoned on a T-Shirt for their wearing pleasure, have been around for a little while, of course. But never before has the TV Cable Newser dedicated an entire series of such shirts to celebrate a single politician… until The One descended upon Washington.

So, what is going on with our purported news agencies? In the past, they’ve tried to hide bias behind a facade of objectivity, tried to hold themselves out as an important, autonomous institution so important that without them we’d no longer, they claimed, have democracy. They’ve said that as “journalists” they must remain separate from government, separate even from patriotism to the point where many of them refuse to flay American flags, stand for the national anthem, or deign to wear American flag lapel pins. They assume of themselves quite an exalted role in our American system and assume of themselves the role of the cynic.

But, as I’ve reported recently, these lofty claims have become but a fond memory. Or if not just a fond memory, then a shedding of the false front held up by the Old Media to obscure the singular fact that instead of disinterested, objective observers interested in “truth,” they are active players that line up behind the political left. We’ve just this week seen a Time Magazine photographer working for both Obama and Time Magazine and learned of the daily left-wing strategy sessions that are joined by influential members of the media and the Chief of Staff of Obama’s White House. These incidents seem to reveal a media complicit with the Obama White House as opposed to a media standing outside that orbit, reporting with a cynical eye on its operations.

And now to add to the above examples we have CNN assisting Obama to continue selling paraphernalia in the form of T-Shirts. The question occurs, of course, would CNN find itself disposed to sell George W. Bush T-Shirts? How about John McCain T-Shirts? Will they be ready to help out Sarah Palin should she want to run for president?

Here are the Obama sayings you can have on your chest should you be so disposed:

This is America happening
 
Obama’s era of change arrives
 
Obama fever goes global as hope rises
 
44th president is a 1st for the nation
 
Obama’s moment arrives
 
1st couple boogies; 2nd couple sways
 
Obama: It’s time to remake America
 
Change comes to Washington
 
Obama: ‘We have chosen hope’
 
Obamas juggle inaugural balls
 
‘This is my moment too,’ witness says
 
Obama fever spreads around the world

Don’t you just feel the hope-n-change in the air? Oh, and the collusion, too?