Political Punch

The media is generally "liberal", but not in this case. War is good for their business. When a war starts, news show ratings go up. Of course they weren't going to question something that would help their ratings.

Hmmm- let's see 'complicit enablers' does this remind you of anything? Like how they treat Obama now??

HP Boston - From Boston well that says a lot anyhow

Lets see someone writes a book about Kerry you libs cry it is a lie, People bring up facts about Barack Hussein Obama you libs say its lies or taken out of context, but someone who writes a book about Pres. Bush who by his own book sat by all this well thats truth!!

Anybody say Hypocritical!!

Is it just me or does the title of the book sound completely mundane to any one else, humorless? He should have come up with something more prophetic like "Burning Bush", or "Pruning Techniques".

This is news? And I know this is a difficult concept - but you ARE the news.

For those of you that feel that McClellan's book doesn't reveal anything that we don't already know, I recommend checking out some of the parts that have, thus far, been overlooked:

It's too easy blaming the media. I'm just a normal guy who reads a lot of news. I knew in 2003 that the UN inspection was mostly working in getting rid of WMDs, and that Saddam was suspected of trying to make it appear otherwise mostly out of fear of Iran. I knew Saddam was if anything an enemy of al Qaeda, and that in fact their anger with us had been inflamed when the Saudis let us rather than them take on Saddam back in 1991. I knew that if Saddam was taken out, the Shia majority in Iraq would inevitably take over (they will) and most likely align with Iran (most likely - a result caused by the invasion itself, now positioned by Republicans to be blamed on withdrawal). I knew Iraq was too fractured to be pulled readily into a unified state.

At the time, I tried to persuade people that Bush's staff must know all of this, too, and that their threats to invade were just a ploy. I was stunned when it actually happened, and kept waiting for that secret information that supposedly justified it. Obviously, they are either corrupt or idiots (or some of both). There were no good reasons to invade Iraq after all, and few to stay. (No, al Qaeda will not take over. They are in no position to do so and have no more reason than we have to try to occupy an entire foreign land, since they already have a comfy home base in Pakistan.)

But there was no secret information. Everything was as the news media had been reporting it clearly enough before the war drumbeats had started drowning everything out. Everything was as accessible facts, and still accessible then, indicated.

In a democracy, it is a citizen's responsibility to understand the facts. Blame the politicians and the media all you want, but all of this information was available to anyone who was interested and thorough enough to look for it. We could not have been fooled if we had done our jobs as the ultimate rulers in a democracy.

The Republicans have made it utterly clear that they intend to continue to get their way by duping us. That has been their model since "Reaganomics." They will keep doing it until we punish them for it. It does make sense to vote them out just for that stance, and to keep them out until they admit it, apologize and promise to quit doing it. But we also should have known better. This story is trying to offer voters an excuse. We don't deserve it.

The news media in this country is in a bit of a jam when it comes to fulfilling their obligations to investigate. Most Americans (as evidenced by most of these forums) don't care to take the time to investigate important issues, nor do they think critically about what they hear or read. They believe what they want to believe in most cases.

I do agree with several who wrote here about 'trusting George Bush'. To me, a Republican, the message from President Bush was crystal clear: "I know details I can't share with you, but trust me, Saddam Hussein is building (WMD)..." That is a variation of Executive Privilege I support, providing the President understands that if he violates that privilege, he's guilty of a "high-crime", and should be Impeached and then removed from office. To usurp war powers by lying to the public and to Congress about his level of certainty in making the case for war, he violates the Constitution and his oath of office. Congress has failed in it's obligation to hold him accountable for that, and we in turn (as voters) have failed in our obligation to require our Representatives to hold him accountable.

We get the government we deserve. A sad commentary on the priorities of the average American over the last 8 years.

Um, kind of ironic that this website belongs to one of the "complicit enablers", no? What better way to defuse the problem than share it on your website.

The Fourth Estate must end.

Upon learning that Bush might invade Iraq, my first thought was that it would lead to disaster, that the Shia in Iran would co-opt the 80% Shia in Iraq and together they would thwart US interests in the region. But, against my better judgment, I deferred to Bush, thinking that he must know more than I do. So, I trusted him (and Congress) and supported the war. Now I feel betrayed, not just by Bush but also by the media. In the words of Paul Wolfowitz: WMDs were "a bureaucratic excuse.... We had no choice.... Iraq floats on a sea of oil" (New Oxford Review). How could the media and the Congress have failed us so? I resent Bush for leading us into war under false pretenses. Had I known the truth, I would never have supported this war. Yet, can we live with Iraq as an Iranian puppet-state or terrorist training ground? We must exit soon, but not until thoses two outcomes have been precluded.

At one point Bush Asked Americans for their Trust. Being the president I gave him my Trust because he asked for it. I'm a democrat and switched to republican briefly because I wanted to back the President on the War on Terror. It turns out Bush invented the term War on Terror and gave us a War of deception in Iraq. For that he mislead us. That is worse than Bin Laden who openly declared his jealousy and hatred of America, at least he is an honest Coward. When you betray the Trust of the American People as was done in the Bush Administration a criminal act occurred. I just pray what Bush did was not deliberate on his part. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolferitz et. al., are obvious bad people in spite of and good intentions they may ever have had. G'd Bless America and the Constitution of America.

Point and case they are doing it again with Obama. They are being complicit enablers letting this empty suit get a chance at the White House. Jake just gave Obama a free pass this morning with some weak excuse at the end of this article as if to imply we should "praise" Obama for not mentioning anything that has to do with his great uncle's service liberating the Jews to get the Jewish vote ignoring of course that Obama brought this incident up in the context of Memorial Day to get the white vote.

While I am gratified that McClellan has stepped up, frankly it would have been truly patriotic to have done so when the polls weren't so favorable.
In 2004, Jon Stewart and the fake "news" Daily Show was about the only outlet with the courage to challenge the popular press and the Neocon agenda. He seemed to know quite well his duty, as Court Jesters have through the ages. In 2006, the tide began to turn and more of the conventional media began to question, but only after the polls showed that the American public had lost faith in the President and didn't believe a word he said any longer.
It doesn't take courage to tell the truth under those circumstances. The real heroes are the ones that have been vilified as traitors, cowards, and of course "liberals" since 2002. And we, the American public, deserve much of what we get. When more people vote for their choice as American Idol than vote for their choice of representative to Congress, don't we all deserve the government that we're getting?

No question, at the time we refering to it as CNN's war they were certianly paving the way.I agree with others about time the news media cought up with whats going on,I live in Canada
you may or not know we are your largest forgein supplyer of oil. You in the USA
have not been building refineries as CNN
would say, But We sure have, building as fast as we can. lot's of oil out there folks.Look no further than Wall st and the london exchange thats whats driving you guy's into the abiss,from your housing bubble to the high cost of food and gas, dont hear much about this
eaven with an election going on? makes one wonder if everyone's been bought

Wow, that's so unexpected. Next week, the media announces that the sky is blue, water runs down hill and everyone is growing older. Gimme a break. The media acting "shocked, just shocked," is about as disingenous as it gets. This is the same group of "reporters" that have Karl Rove giving "commentary," when he should really be facing criminal charges. The same group that can't find an "unimbedded" journalist in their ranks. The only thing missing is marrionette strings and a flag pin that says, " I am a stooge for the Republican lie machine."

Prove that god does not exist.

Can't be done. It's one of the classic logical fallacies; you cannot prove nonexistence. How is it that one can have a graduate degree in journalism and a college degree and not know this?

Prove that the WMDs don't exist.

Can't be done.

Prove that WMDs don't exist, or we're going to start bombing your country.

Still can't be done.

Why no one in the media was ever willing to present the fundamental logical flaw in the administration's argument for the war - that Iraq had not proven nonexistence - amazed me at the time, and still amazes me.

Scott Ritter tried and failed to make this point in the tiny amount of airtime he was permitted.

One media issue was that voices critical of the war were not permitted to participate in the debate in the mainstream press.

Another was that the administration had seduced the Post and the Times (most spectacularly Judith Miller, but the whole paper followed her lead) and no one was paying attention to reporting come out of McClatchy.

Since the broadcast media had already repurposed their news divisions as entertainment by this point, they were under pressure not to introduce new or complex ideas but rather to restate whatever the consensus was and get back to covering marriages, teens behaving badly, and whatever else they needed to broadcast to keep channel surfers from heading over to Entertainment Tonight.

In 2002, after the Congressional elections, the Onion pointedly observed that we get the government we deserve, and inquired as to who'd been knife-raping retarded nuns lately.

We all were, every time we tuned out the news in favor of Britney coverage.

The Bush Admn and their supporters put a great deal of effort into destroying anyone who spoke against the war. They tried to hurt financially entertainers, like the Dixie Chicks, Linda Ronstadt, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn and others, so they may have been leaning on members of the media as well. We know there was subtle pressure put on the CIA and other intelligence outlets to spin the intel. We also know that they spoon fed news outlets with their talking points, then quoted those outlets as if those news people had developed the stories on their own. They were masters of manipulation, but not of developing good policy.

This is a great piece, thanks!

Not everyone was blind to what was happening; unfortunately those who were trying to point out the shortcomings of the administration's story were not being given much of a voice at the time. The administration's propaganda machine did a good job of equating being complicit in the march to war with patriotism (a technique proven time-and-again throughout history to be effective). The media just went along. I remember there was a site, that was frozen at the time of the invasion. It's interesting to see just how much information in support of not going into Iraq was available at the time and simply being ignored by the mainstream press and the public at large. The consequences, sadly, have been and will continue to be tragic. In addition to lives directly lost across the board, it will take the full working lives of well over a million people to pay for this folly (to say nothing of the secondary economic consequences which play right into the pockets of Bush's and Cheney's closest business associates).

in my mind i retain the image of anderson cooper in the back of a humvee wearing a helmet bouncing up and down, sounding, looking, and acting more like a cheerleader than a reporter as the U.S entered Bagdad. that was when i knew for certain, that the carnage that was about to go prime time had all been carefully scripted and designed for public consumption.