Conason: Greatest hits of the media herd on Iraq prelude

[BurtWorm]

The same herd that is now claiming "everyone knew" what the Downing Street Minutes make clear, which is why the DSM, supposedly, isn't news. :eyes:


http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/06/17/dsm_press/index.html


But let's also look at what Kinsley himself wrote on July 12, 2002, after those war plans were leaked. On the Post's Op-Ed page, he suggested that despite all the logistical planning and bellicose rhetoric, "Bush may be bluffing ... Or he may be lying, and the leak may be part of an official strategy of threatening all-out war in the hope of avoiding it, by encouraging a coup or persuading Hussein to take early retirement or in some other way getting him gone without a massive invasion."

So Kinsley himself wasn't quite certain whether Bush had decided on war, yet now he says we all knew.

On that same Op-Ed page two months later, fervent hawk James Hoagland, whose views on the war closely reflect those of the paper's editorial board, wrote a column about the president's U.N. speech. Hoagland described Bush as "diligent prosecuting attorney, sorrowful statesman and reluctant potential warrior.

"Bush wisely did not base his appeals for collective action against Iraq on a doctrine of preemption ... Instead he explained how the need for such drastic steps can be avoided by concerted international action." War, that is, could still be avoided, or so Hoagland believed as of Sept. 15, 2002.

[Must_B_Free]

1. What the fuck happened to Kinsley?

I used to respect him

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Its the Lexus SUV

the big ass house.
the vacation on Marthas Vineyard.
all gone if you don't play.

[CatWoman]

5. since coming down with Parkinsons

he's has come down ideally and spiritually, IMHO.

[BurtWorm]

3. kick

[BurtWorm]

4. kick

[gratuitous]

6. Yup, they're finding all the needles in the haystacks of reportage

See? See? We told you all along that it could be a bogus rationale! Of course, what the apologists fail to say is that the overall tone of the coverage leading up to the invasion, the tone that set public opinion and solidified the administration's agenda, was unabashed cheer-leading for going to war. Throwaway sentences toward the end of much longer stories and minor items buried on page D18 hardly offset the wall-to-wall, daily drumbeat whipping up the war fervor. Doubters and their doubts were routinely ridiculed, discounted, portrayed as out-of-touch, frustrated hippie holdovers from the 60s, or other denigrations.

Now that it looks like the folks who were against the illegal invasion were RIGHT ALL ALONG, the media would love to portray themselves as sensitive to those doubts, willing to provide equal time and equal treatment to all sides of the debate, when the reality at the time was tilted more than a pinball machine in a redneck bar on a Saturday night.

Sorry assholes. If I had my way, you'd get to report on the first round of the trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. You'd be in the dock for the second round.

[Just Me]

9. So true. They willing became a government propaganda machine.

Nothing changes that. Nothing.

[LizW]

7. Excellent piece!

Conason calls Kinsley on his crap. This needs to be done in the same manner for all the big papers. Clearly, the "everyone knew it" excuse doesn't hold up when you go back and look at what Kinsley was writing at the time of the run-up to war.

This sheds new light. Clearly, the papers don't want to talk about Bush's lies because at the time he was lying, they were supporting and parroting what he was saying! They are caught. Did they really know Bush was lying then (and intentionally support him in his deception), or are they lying now in order to keep from having to report Bush's proven lies?

Rock/MSM/hard place.

[The Magistrate]

8. That Is Indeed The Point, Ma'am

They did know at the time war was a settled decision; any competent observer, even from the sidelines, could see that. Despite that knowledge, they wrote as if there were some question in the matter. They deliberately falsified their reports, spoke less than they knew, went along with a sort of script that presented invading Iraq as first merely an option that might ocur, then a thing that would be hard to avoid, then a thing that had to be done. The old Pravda could not have done it better....

[Warren Stupidity]

10. its the complicity, stupid

didn't we hang goebbels?

As far as I am concerned every last one of the war mongerers in and out of the administration are complicit and the whole bunch need a trip to the hague for some of that good old fashioned law'n'order that they routinely deny to their victims.

[Hobo]

11. No actually we didn't

He killed himself along with his wife and children in the bunker after Adolph ate the lead.

Peace

Hobo

:beer:

[The Magistrate]

12. Doubtless We Would Have, Sir

But it would have been the Soviets who caught him....

[Warren Stupidity]

13. good point, but irrelevant. EOM.