Alexander Pope
An Essay on Criticism. 1711
No sooner had Bush’s ex-press secretary (now author) Scott McClellan accused President Bush and his former collaborators of misleading our country into Iraq than the squeals of protest turned into a mighty roar. I’m not talking about the vitriol directed at him by former White House colleagues like Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer. I’m talking about McClellan’s other war collaborators: the movers and shakers in corporate media. The people McClellan refers to in his book as "deferential, complicit enablers" of Bush administration war propaganda.
One after another, news stars defended themselves with the tired old myth that no one doubted the Iraq WMD (weapons of mass destruction) claims at the time. The yarn about hindsight being 20/20 was served up more times than a Reverend Wright clip on Fox News…
It has been kind of amazing to hear the likes of Tom Brokaw and Dick Gregory making excuses and vindicating themselves for not challenging the absurdity of this war. Only Katie Couric [my least favorite] owned up and said, "I think it’s one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism." One thing is clear. Our perception was correct that the media’s white washing the cassus belli [cause for war] came from the top – from network executives. Many of them in their self-justifications reveal that their phones rang if they criticized President Bush or his Courtiers.
Human beings are amazing. When there’s something this obvious, the right thing to do is come clean, then move on with the truth. No one believes the self-justifying – not really. Even Scott McClellan knows that!
You know it’s kind of funny how you are writing about this point because I bought Neil Youngs’s cd about the war a few years ago and he sings about no more lies about wmds etc. This guy’s a singer and he nails it in his songs. I am glad I bought his protest cd and I’m glad to have bought the Dixie Chicks cd about “Not Ready to Make Nice”. We have a president and vice president who lied us into war and they use torture and we need the media to own up to the fact that they pussy footed around the truth and helped them get away with it. They can’t handle the truth. I missed some of Bill Moyers show with Phil Donahues and his other guest last night who made the movie about this war I think it’s titled “Man at War” It follows a severely injured soldier from the Iraq war and his protest of this war. It shows how his family is affected too. At the end of the show it shows parents and spouses who have lost their loved ones holding up pictures of their dead and when they see this soldier in the wheelchair they want to touch him as if touching him brings their fallen loved ones closer to them. What a scene. I will have to find out where I can view the movie. Phil Donahue has become an American hero of mine.