Enough Is Enough! (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?)

Could everybody please tell the Washington Post that they need to fire Peter Baker and Jim Vandehei today?

They badly need to do so--if, that is, they ever want to recover their reputation as "objective news reporters."

This is just too stupid to let pass:

Bush Team Casts Foes as Defeatist: While no Democrat has the powerful platform that the White House affords Bush and Cheney, the complaints about the mischaracterizing of positions on the war flow in both directions. Many Democrats accuse the president of advocating "stay the course" in Iraq, but the White House rejects the phrase...

Greg Sargent writes:

The Horse's Mouth: WASHINGTON POST LETS WHITE HOUSE DISTANCE ITSELF FROM "STAY THE COURSE" RHETORIC. This borders on the surreal. From today's WaPo.... Democrats accuse the President of advocating "stay the course" in Iraq? The President's constant assertion that we should "stay the course" in Iraq is a matter of objective fact, not of partisan accusation. And why no fact-check of the White House's "rejection" of the phrase? The White House doesn't reject the phrase. At all. Indeed, the last time President Bush advocated staying the course in just those words was...yesterday:

August 30, 2006: "We will stay the course, we will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed and victory in Iraq will be a major ideological triumph in the struggle of the 21st century."

This shouldn't need pointing out, but "stay the course" has of course been a Bush stock phrase for years now.

August 5, 2005: We will stay the course. We will complete the job in Iraq. And the job is this, we'll help the Iraqis develop a democracy.

April 13, 2004: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We'll stay the course; we'll complete the job. My message to our troops is: We will stay the course and complete the job and you'll have what you need.

July 10, 2003: A free Iraq will mean a peaceful world. And it's very important for us to stay the course, and we will stay the course.

In fairness, there's some good stuff in the WaPo piece, too, but this is just sloppy. With the White House about to unleash another major "public relations offensive" on Iraq, reporters are about to get hit with another relentless fusillade of official lying, and much of it will be of the "we-aren't-advocating-stay-the-course" variety. How will the press handle it? At a moment when Dems are aggressively challenging the GOP over Iraq, it's understandable that White House officials would be desperate to avoid accountability for their own past statements and actions, but that doesn't mean the big news orgs should help them do it.

Relatedly, Atrios notes that Ken Mehlman has been "berating" media figures for holding the administration accountable for its own words. It looks as if WaPo has gotten Mehlman's memo.

I don't care whether it is simple incompetence--an inability to Google the White House website for "stay the course"--or cynical mendacity in the interest of gaining White House brownie points. Ten years. I give the Post ten years.

Comments

[Anderson]

Forest/trees problem, Prof. DeLong? Kevin Drum notes this in the article:

* * *

Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."

Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite *no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone*. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

* * *

That's not bad at all. I wouldn't go ballistic over the "stay the course" goof.

[Auros]

You make a good point, Anderson. We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

But, the reporters are still letting the GOP perpetuate this sort of ahistorical worldview, in which what they said yesterday is immaterial to what they say today. We should not need to get an Official Democratic Source to point out when the GOP is lying. There aren't enough Democrats to catch, and stomp, EVERY lie. When the lies are this obvious, it should be considered a normal function of news reporting to point it out.

[jerry]

"I give the Post ten years." Yeah, but that's what you said last week and the week before.

So a Friedman is six months, and a DeLong (as opposed to a furlong) is 10 years. /Kidding

[Cranky Observer]

Radicals punish the traditional media for reporting things (or in ways) they don't like.

Democrats historically have not only NOT punished the traditional media for stabbing them, but have sucked up to same. It is also not clear that there is any Democratic coalition with the financial or corporate resources (e.g. Scaife) to impose any significant punishment if they decided to do so.

Based on standard economic theory, which party will the traditional media favor?

Cranky

[jerry]

Regarding forest/trees, it is more like clearcut/seedling/leaf.

Kevin notes one leaf on the seedling is growing nicely, Brad notes the other leaf is wilted, burnt, and rotting. In the meantime I note the hillside has been clearcut by everyone else on the WAPO staff (Jonathan....)

[Dean Baker]

On the dispute on "Stay the Course," see the picture http://www.nytimes.com/ (hurry before they change the web version).

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/washington/31cnd-bush.html

August 31, 2006

Bush Says Iraq War Is Part of a Larger Fight
By DAVID STOUT

President Bush began a new drive today to rally the American people behind him on the Iraq war and national security, declaring that the United States must stay the course in Iraq because it is a battleground in an epic struggle between democracy and tyranny.

Mr. Bush told the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City that the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, have much in common with the suicide bombers of Baghdad and the Hezbollah militants who rain rockets on Israel.

Whatever their ethnic or religious differences, Mr. Bush said, they are united in their wish “to turn back the advance of freedom, and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world.”

Mr. Bush scoffed at his critics’ charges that the American-led campaign in Iraq is a distraction from the real struggle against Al Qaeda terrorists. “That would come as news to Osama bin Laden,” he said, asserting that terrorists from other countries in the Middle East are making their way to Iraq to try to smother the emerging democracy....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/washington/31cnd-bush.html

"President Bush began a new drive today to rally the American people behind him on the Iraq war and national security, declaring that the United States must stay the course in Iraq because it is a battleground in an epic struggle between democracy and tyranny."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083003177_pf.html

"Many Democrats accuse the president of advocating "stay the course" in Iraq, but the White House rejects the phrase and regularly emphasizes that it is adapting tactics to changing circumstances, such as moving more U.S. troops into Baghdad recently after a previous security strategy appeared to fail."

[anne]

So, then we must stay the course, especially against Democrats who do not wish to stay the course, only we are not staying the course because the course is changing and we are changing with the changing course. I understand.

[anne]

But, we are staying the course and will stay the course pending the winds of the election campaign which may cause a course change at least during the campaign:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/nyregion/31shays.html

August 31, 2006

G.O.P. Congressman Shifts to Favor an Iraq Timetable
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON — Only a few weeks ago, Representative Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, minced no words in responding to calls led by Democrats for a phased withdrawal from Iraq. “To have a timetable is absolutely foolish,” he said.

But now, as he faces an increasingly tough re-election battle against an antiwar Democrat, Diane G. Farrell, Mr. Shays has undergone a conversion: He is proposing a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops, an idea derided by the Bush administration and many Republicans.

“A lot of thought has gone into this,” the congressman explained in a lengthy interview this week. “I had a lot of resistance in my own office in moving forward with this.” ...

[anne]

Now, to be clear, since clarity is important, I am not changing course and I thought occupying Iraq a policy of lunacy from the beginning and wished immediately that we might leave and wished more so ever since. We must leave Iraq, no matter that we have decided to stay. The days bring continual sadness, as they must bring to an impossible occupation policy, a policy that strikes me as would-be colonization that is physically, psychologically, morally and materially tragic lunacy.

[Ginger Yellow]

I told you. Clinically insane.

[kharris]

When I stop looking for a while, I fall back into thinking the Washington mob is slick. Then Shays says “I had a lot of resistance in my own office in moving forward with this.”

Democracy => Elected Representative => Constituents Views?

Nope, left off the last part. Just staff in his office. Dump him.

[SZ]

Behold, the power of the Washington Post to drive Brad insane.

Perhaps, in a fit of unanticipated truth telling, Tony Snow decided to point out that we can't very well stay on a course since we've no plan to begin with. "Standing down as Iraqis stand up" sounds good, but in terms of policy it means nothing. Remember what happened in Basra when the British forces handed power to the local army? The base was looted in 14 hours. All that was left were bricks that were looted a few days later. BRICKS!

-SZ, who considers it unmanly, unAmerican even, to change plans in the face of changed circumstances. He has made up his mind and does not want to be confused with the facts!

[Raoul Duke]

Why oh why would anyone take the US press corps seriously? In yesterday's thought provoking "National Interest" sponsored roundtable discussion, telecast on CSPAN, former Reagan administration NIC vice chair Graham Fuller said you simply cannot get your information from the mainstream US media and expect to be reasonably well informed.

What does it say when even conservatives, at least those still tethered to reality, think these people are a joke?

[anne]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq31aug31,1,309592.story?coll=la-headlines-world

August 31, 2006

Iraqi Forces Not Ready Yet, U.S. General Says
By Louise Roug and Julian E. Barnes

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces will need an additional year to 18 months before they can take over from American troops, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., said Wednesday.

The assessment, which came on a day when at least 79 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, drove home a growing realization that U.S. troops will stay longer and in greater numbers in Iraq than once anticipated by ground commanders and the Bush administration.

"I don't have a date, but I can see over the next 12 to 18 months the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country with very little coalition support," Casey told reporters in Baghdad....

[sm]

I could use some free bricks and I live in a peaceful country that has never been bombed or occupied. Looting bricks makes perfect sense to me, given the recent history of Iraq.

[Tom Marney]

Haven't we always been at war with Eurasia?

[Christopher Ball]

Yes, let's urge the WP to fire journalists for writing this lead:

"President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions."

[Charges that many Democrats *SAY.* Baker and Vandehei won't say "charges that distort Democrats' stated positions," will they?

They go on: "Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics 'claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone.' And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that 'many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased.'

"Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

"'A lot of the people who say we need to withdraw from Iraq say we'll be safer, and I don't think that's accurate,' said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, a key architect of the party's strategy heading into the fall congressional campaign. Mehlman noted that al-Qaeda leaders and other Islamic radicals have said they want to drive Americans out of Iraq and use it as a base. 'We ought to not ignore when they say they're going to do that.'

"White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it is reasonable for Bush to presume that Democrats will try to cut off funding for the war if they take over Congress, noting that 54 House Democrats voted against a spending bill for military operations last year. 'How would they force the president to withdraw troops?' she asked. 'Yell?'...

Five full paragraphs without a quote from a Democrat. That's their idea of balance. Fire them.]

[Robert Waldmann]

"Forest/trees problem, Prof. DeLong?"

I'd say rather carrots and sticks. The article challenges some Republicans' lies as noted by Drum. The article does not challenge Mehlman's lie that it is a distortion to claim that Bush says we should stay the course.

I would note that the article has two authors and speculate (without foundation belief or honesty) that one is the honest reporter and the other is the Republican hack and say that one should be fired and I will be checking to see which is the hack. If anyone cared what I thought, that would be an incentive to tone down the hackery. Jonathan F*** Brad DeLong Weisman, at least showed that someone at the WAPO is paying attention.

Now not quoting Democrats seems fine to me given the Republican circular firing squad. I do think that, given the tragically low standards of US arithmatic, Peter Baker and Jim Vandehei should have pointed out that "54 House Democrats" are not a majority of the Democratic caucus, so Dana Perino's evidence tends to illustrate the obvious falsehood of her claim. But Christopher, could a Democrat possibly have done more damage to the White House than Perino did ? If so please tell me how I'd dearly love to surpass her in her efforts to prove Bush is a liar.

[diddy]

1. Wondering if the post title is a clever Snakes on a Plane reference.

2. Am reminded of 1988 SNL Bush/Dukakis debate sketch.
Carvey/Bush: "So, in conclusion, stay the course... thousand points of light... stay the course."
Lovitz/Dukakis: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."