After W, Will the Press Get a Spine?
NEWS: Having failed to nail Bush for his fabrications and fibs, can the mainstream press do a better job of policing political and presidential prevarication this campaign season—and beyond?
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it was late into the night of September 2, 2004. I was in the near-empty bar of the Essex House hotel in New York City. George W. Bush had just delivered his acceptance speech at the gop convention at Madison Square Garden. Before a pumped-up crowd, the president had declared that Iraq had been "a gathering threat" before he launched the invasion. He blurred the line between the terrorists responsible for 9/11 and the insurgents in Iraq. He described John Kerry's vote against war funding as a vote to leave US soldiers unprotected. He claimed, "Our strategy is succeeding." As I sat in the bar writing my piece, the tables next to me slowly filled with senior reporters and top editors from the Washington Post. Typing away, I could hear them deride Bush's speech as a collection of misrepresentations. Their consensus was clear: Bush was trying to pull a fast one.
Yet the next morning, the paper's front page flatly proclaimed, "Bush Promises 'a Safer World': Acceptance Speech Sets Lofty Goals." The lead article was a straightforward account of the address, with not a hint at the well-founded skepticism of the paper's own reporters and editors. A media outfit, abiding by the conventional rules of journalism (just the quotes, ma'am), had once again enabled a president who was not being honest. And I was reminded of a 1997 remark by Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of the Post: "Even the very best newspapers have never learned how to handle public figures who lie with a straight face."
In recent years, Bradlee's axiom has been sorely tested. And while the question of just where Bush fits in the annals of presidential prevarication will soon belong to historians, a related matter is worthy of immediate contemplation: Will the Bush experience prompt the media to perform better next time the Bradlee test is relevant?
The debate over Bush's relationship with the truth was well under way by the time the president took the stage at the Garden. By late summer 2003, a small flood of books had appeared questioning the veracity of the president and his political comrades, including my own The Lies of George W. Bush. Mainstream journalists and right-wing commentators quickly reached a consensus on why these books were being published—not because of any real problem, but because liberals had been driven to irrational hatred of the president. Writing in the New York Times, Matt Bai opined that "the new leftist screeds seem to solidify a rising political culture of incivility and overstatement." Also in the Times, James Traub—while acknowledging that Bush had served up "quite a few actual fibs"—observed, "The sudden rash of jeremiads and their stunning popularity raises a question: Why are so many liberals, including sane and sober ones, granting themselves permission to hate the president?" In Time, James Poniewozik bemoaned "the rise of the anger industry." Going further, columnist David Brooks warned that "The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves." On cnn, Tucker Carlson said the anti-Bush books were written to cater "to the paranoia and craziness of the far left" and were "selling because the Democratic Party has gone completely insane with Bush hatred."
The ideologues of the right and the oh-so-calm pundits of the center were redefining the issue: Have the libs gone bonkers? They could not handle a serious discussion of Bush's untruthfulness. As National Review editor Rich Lowry declared, "I don't think the public is going to buy the idea that [Bush is] a liar."
Well, the public did, no thanks to the commentariat. After September 11, as many as 77 percent of Americans described Bush as honest and trustworthy. 
By early 2004 only a little more than half believed that; and earlier this year, 53 percent of the participants in a USA Today/Gallup Poll said that Bush "deliberately misled the American public" about wmd and Iraq.
It is a remarkable and defining fact of the Bush years that half the nation came to distrust him—right around the time he was reelected. Will we wise up sooner next time?
True, there are now more bloggers and websites that vet officials and journalists alike—from FactCheck.org (courtesy of the Annenberg Public Policy Center) to PolitiFact.com (established by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly). The Washington Post now rates fibbing pols on a 1-to-4-Pinocchios scale.
But there have been few repercussions for those complicit in the Bush administration's truth mugging. Look at the op-ed page of the New York Times, and you will find David Brooks and Bill Kristol (who in a prewar debate with me on Fox News maintained with a straight face that Saddam was "past the finish line" on nuclear weapons) holding forth as if nothing has happened. Karl Rove pens a column for Newsweek. Reporters who functioned as a conveyor belt for false information skated as well, with the notable exception of the Times' Judith Miller.
A few media big shots did apologize for their prewar failure—sort of. The Times in 2004 published a tepid editor's note conceding that its prewar coverage was "not as rigorous as it should have been." The Post's Bob Woodward acknowledged that he and the Post should have been more aggressive. And some reporters who do fret about being hornswoggled again—say, on Iran—have vowed to be more skeptical.
But not everyone got the memo. That was evident this spring, when ex-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan blasted his former boss for having relied on a "political propaganda campaign" to sell the Iraq War to the public. McClellan also slammed the national press corps for having been "too deferential to the White House" and having insufficiently challenged its rationales for war. It was rather like a serial killer complaining that the cops had been too incompetent to catch him. But McClellan had a point, and the response from prominent journalists suggested that some still haven't taken the first step on the road to recovery: admitting the problem.
nbc News White House correspondent David Gregory passed the buck. "I think we challenged the president...If there wasn't a debate in this country, then maybe the American people should think about why not. Where was Congress?" He added that McClellan "thinks...if we did not stand up and say, 'This is bogus, and you're a liar'... we didn't do our job. And I respectfully disagree." abc News anchor Charlie Gibson also let himself off the hook: "It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them."
So could it happen again? "Definitely, it could," says media critic Jay Rosen. "The press got played. There is no way to learn from that until you can say, 'We got played.' They aren't there yet." How the media come to terms with the W era, Rosen adds, is essential to their future. "There is some recognition that if journalists cannot say false statements are false, we aren't going to be needing journalists for long."
Ben Bradlee, too, worries the Washington press corps hasn't been much changed—or chagrined—by the Bush experience. "I've never seen a story that has a lead paragraph that says, 'The president said this,' and a second paragraph that says, 'This is a lie,'" Bradlee remarks. "We just don't have that kind of balls."
What should the media do differently? "My answer is to have a fetish about the truth and to consider the possibility the guys in power are lying on purpose," Bradlee says. "It's always a problem—I can't remember a time when it wasn't a problem."
David Corn is the bureau chief at Mother Jones's Washington, DC, Bureau.
Illustration: John Ueland | Cartoon by Steve Brodner
1. McCain says in his acceptance speech that he will not leave it to some unfortunate future generation to solve today's problems. He also says that he will continue to cut taxes and will continue to spend on war as much or more than W has ... this is an Oxymoron that the press should call him on (ha ha! The press!). There is no way that all that spending wihtout taxation is going to do anything other than grow the already mountainous debt burden some "future generation" will be paying off.
2. Obama is brave enough to go into the O'Reilly lion's den ... then capitulates on the malarky that the "surge has been success beyond our wildest expectations". The surge can only have worked if it achieved it's objectives. These were clearly listed at the time. They were to give the Iraqi government time to make advances in 18 areas. None, I believe, have been achieved. At the same time, the lack of remaining targets coupled with the Sunni's changing tack and accepting bribe money to stop fighting has resulted in a return to levels of violence lower than in 2006-2007 (but still too high). So what success? Well done Barry ... the story is now agreed that McCain was right when everyone else was wrong. Does the press call Obama on this mis-statement? Does anyone ever refer back to the definition of success that Bush and Petreaus set themselves? It seems not.
What a shocker ... the rest of the world (I'm not American) is now sh*ting itself that U.S. voters are going to monumentally screw up again to the detriment of the whole world. I fear that four more years of this environment will break something seriously ... the world economy, the environment, the peace that many lucky people experience ... who knows?
IF he had the great access that he purported to have while writing such masterpieces as "Bush at War" then (as he is no question a smart guy) he must have known that he was writing a pack of lies at the least by providing stenography without critique against known facts.
It seems that 30 years makes a world of difference. Nixon was a saint compared to Cheney as his front man.
We are still living in denial - the journalists of yesteryear are gone, and their probing integrity has been replaced with corporate shills.
The media is largely going to continue to merely parrot the talking points written for them by the same sorts of liars who have gotten us to this point.
If we want challenges that lead to the truth, then we need new media groups, like MotherJones, to lead that charge. We will not see it from the traditional main-stream media, as there is no upside for them in the truth.
I don't think misinforming your country so you can start a war qualifies as a fib. I don't think killing almost 100000 civillians qualifies as fib. And I don't think trying to create the impression that there is a war between factions in a country you invaded qualifies as a fib.
Why is mainstream American media so soft on politicians? Could it be too many large corporate ties? Is there a major American newspaper that isn't owned by a large corporation?
Years from now historians will look back on the war in Iraq and say with absolute clarity that America was manipulated into it. Misinformation was fed to the media and therefore the public at every opportunity. Just ask ABC News about that Anthrax-Iraq-connection tip-off.
Did that come from the Manifest Destiny?
Finally: Example. No, earmarks are not a large portion of spending; pork and "bringing home the bacon" have always been part of republican politics. But, do we need a president who will not tell voters how and why it is corrupting, the same way small programs, such as NCLB can exert such influence on major institutions? Wow, THAT is leverage, to make State and local schools conform because to do otherwise would leave a few % of total school spending on the table. A cynic, charlatan, and conman knew an empty package when he saw one: Bill Clinton had it right about Obama -- a fairy tale.
"definitely it could."
oh, [deleted]...
They are slithering Reptiles!
Part and Parcel of the Problem.
Censoring the News!
Broken Jawed,
Propaganda Spewing,
Rovien Parrots!
my foot! And is that saying anything considering the company they are in? I just hope Obama grows a pair instead of coasting to a second term by being MOR.
Obviously, no. The key here is the word 'mainstream'--it is not in the economic interest of the handful of media giants to challenge the status quo because they are part of it. (Not to mention the whole Mockingbird thing, which writers like David Corn dismiss with a roll of the eyes...)
Look at it this way, via energy, another institutionalized scam, one of the most powerful in the whole fraudulent "free trade" myth that's been rammed down our throats ever since the Owners strung up the last Luddite along the busiest thoroughfares 200 years ago as a message for anyone else who wondered why we had to work at all when it only takes 5% of the population to produce the essentials of life.
The "news" business works the same way as any other racket: it's all about creating and controlling scarcity. "Supply & demand" is mere agitprop or, occasionally, a useful stage prop for those trusting souls who still believe all that crap they were taught in school. Otherwise, David Corn and Glenn Greenwald could talk about the serially obscured fact that all economic and environmental imbalances are the result of social dominance & oppression. Murray Bookchin explained this dynamic in Remaking Society...a book that grows more relevant with each passing day.
Another resource that exposes the collusion between the Owners and the "press" is Eric B. Ross' The Malthus Factor, available online at the Corner House. Free your minds of the insidious, enduring lies planted there by the drones from the Ministry of Truth and you might just see how easy it would be to make heaven right here on earth.
the energy racket
..It should not be called the free press BUT the PANDERING PRESS who worry more about their status at a presidential press conference than the truth.
Other journalist became scared and didn't want to loose their job as well.
..This is an example I find interesting. In the last thirty days of the campaign Senator John McCain decides to "re-invent" himself ?.? Good Timing !.! Or his (?????) pick of Sarah Palin for a running mate. Women make up something like 50% of the population (give or take) I ask those I know "would you vote for someone to take your "rights" away from you ?.?.?
Not One Has Ever Said Yes.......If you alienate 50% of the population.... in in the last thirty days of the campaign flip-flop with an re-invention scheme -.-.-.- YOU WANT TO WIN THE ELECTION ?.?.? Meantime in Washington Presdent Bush is gutting all the rules and regulations for Big Business & and the Bailout....
I'll Bet He's Happy With the SECRECY ACT.