The "mainstream media" ...in a nutshell

[SHRED]

Hypocrites and cowards.

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While America Slept
Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist, declared on Thursday that President Bush "wanted war" in Iraq, and the White House case for it was mainly false. Yet, three years ago, Cohen wrote that "only a fool" could doubt the president and the need for war.

By Greg Mitchell

(March 30, 2006) -- Richard Cohen, the longtime Washington Post columnist sometimes accused of being a “liberal,” produced a strong column today, titled “Bush Wanted War.” In it he said he had long been skeptical of this idea, but now had come to accept it. That’s all well and good, but where was Cohen a little more than three years ago, when this fact was as plain as the smirk on the president’s face, and the columnist agitated for war anyway?

If there was an “I’m sorry for being so stupid” embedded in Cohen’s column I didn’t spot it.

This is the man who, on Feb. 6, 2003, after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deeply-flawed testimony in New York, wrote: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.”

Yet Cohen has the nerve to write today: “Colin Powell, you may recall, soiled his stellar reputation with a United Nations speech that is now just plain sad to read. Almost none of it is true.”

MORE>>> http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002275180

[leveymg]

1. In other words, "Let's move on to the next disaster."

Re: Greg Mitchell
E&P, "While America Slept"
(March 30, 2006)

Thank you for printing Greg Mitchell's critique of Richard Cohen. Mitchell may be wrong about one thing. It was no mea culpa by Cohen for his and his paper's editorial support for the war in Iraq. That would suggest that some learning has gone on. The WaPo's editorial line, as I see it, says quite the opposite - that paper has learned nothing from Iraq, and is ready to charge into Iran.

Richard Cohen's column on the folly of Iraq last Thursday betrays one fact about Cohen, the WaPo, and the threatened war with Iran. There's no learning that's gone on here from our lost war in Iraq. It's merely an attempt, way after it would have made any difference, to cut polemical losses. Richard Cohen, like the rest of the WaPo crew, is still in full-cry to shift the war to the Eastern Front. Their meme is, well, Iran is different. You'd better believe it is, Richard. It's Iraq times ten, at least.

Here's a recent screed from Richard on the subject. I don't see here anything but more of the same sort of erroneous assumptions supporting false conclusions displayed in his Iraq columns. And there may be consequences for such high stupidity applied to Iran that might transcend the ability of Cohen and his ilk to simple say in three or four years, after the dust has settled from the stratosphere, "Let's move on, shall we?" The consequences of being wrong again include a Iranian-Israeli missile exchange that's triggered by an attack on Iran. :nuke:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601614.html

Judicious Double Standards

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, March 7, 2006; Page A17

Back behind my high school one day, we all assembled to watch a fistfight. To my immense pleasure, a bully was being bested by his victim. Then the bully's friend stepped in and ended matters with a swift kick to the other guy's midsection. It was an unfair ending to what was supposed to be a fair fight, but it taught me a valuable lesson: You treat your friends differently than you do your enemies. This elemental principle of life, love and other matters seems utterly lost on so many critics of George Bush's agreement to provide India with civilian nuclear technology. In doing so, we are told, he has done something truly awful -- established a double standard. Well, duh -- yes. India is our friend and Iran, just to pick an example, is not.

The cry of "double standard" is a bit silly. It asks us not to recognize certain realities -- the difference between friends and enemies, for instance, or good and bad democracies, to give another example. In the case of the nuclear agreement, we are somehow supposed to believe that by favoring India, Bush has made it much harder to put pressure on Iran to abandon its apparent weapons program and become a "good guy" nation. This overlooks the fact that Iran is governed by a zealot who has pledged to eradicate Israel and who firmly believes in the inherent evil of the United States of America. As Bush once said about himself, the Iranians do not do nuance.

SNIP

The invocation of the term "double standard" is often applied where Israel is concerned. Israel is presumed to have a nuclear arsenal. Why should the United States look the other way at Israel's bomb and go nuts over Iran's effort to get one? The answer ought to be clear: Because Israel has not threatened to blow Iran off the map; because it is vastly outnumbered in a tough, belligerent neighborhood; and because it is the lone real democracy in a region run mostly by thugs. The same accusation of a double standard is made with regard to the effort to discriminate between election outcomes. We are supposed to treat the victory of Hamas in Palestine as we would that of the Labor Party in Britain. But the outcome of one democratic election is not threatening and the other is, and we ought to be able to say so -- and do something about it. If, for instance, we are supposed to continue aiding a Palestinian government that has now fallen into the hands of religious fanatics and proponents of a virulent brand of anti-Semitism, then we have lost our minds. It will not matter to some poor Israeli that the terrorist who kills him represented a democratically elected government. The "double standard" accusation has a schoolyard quality to it. Why a boycott of Cuba and not of China? Because you can with one and not with the other. Why attack Saddam Hussein and not all the other vile dictators? Because you do what you can.

SNIP

The Israeli bomb threatens nobody. An Iranian bomb does. India has transferred its nuclear technology to no one. Pakistan has. No one worries about India or Israel making the technology available to terrorists. Everyone worries about Iran doing that. These are distinctions with great differences. They are, as critics charge, double standards, but to apply a single standard to both friend and enemy, while it might be fair, would be singularly stupid.

[e-mail] :nuke:

(Response to: SHRED (1000+ posts) Mon Apr-03-06 08:30 AM
Original message
The "mainstream media" ...in a nutshell
Hypocrites and cowards.

-----


While America Slept
Richard Cohen, the Washington Post columnist, declared on Thursday that President Bush "wanted war" in Iraq, and the White House case for it was mainly false. Yet, three years ago, Cohen wrote that "only a fool" could doubt the president and the need for war.

By Greg Mitchell

(March 30, 2006) -- Richard Cohen, the longtime Washington Post columnist sometimes accused of being a “liberal,” produced a strong column today, titled “Bush Wanted War.” In it he said he had long been skeptical of this idea, but now had come to accept it. That’s all well and good, but where was Cohen a little more than three years ago, when this fact was as plain as the smirk on the president’s face, and the columnist agitated for war anyway?

If there was an “I’m sorry for being so stupid” embedded in Cohen’s column I didn’t spot it.

This is the man who, on Feb. 6, 2003, after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deeply-flawed testimony in New York, wrote: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.”

Yet Cohen has the nerve to write today: “Colin Powell, you may recall, soiled his stellar reputation with a United Nations speech that is now just plain sad to read. Almost none of it is true.”

MORE>>> http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressin... )

[hadrons]

2. a friend of mine who works for Forbes mag told me that .....

the editors and publishers like it that people don't pay close attention because then they don't notice the editorial shifts that take place ... this hack Cohen clearly believes (and he's probably right) most people don't remember what he wrote 3 years ago.

[yurbud]

3. as the war liberals like to say, "IRAN is the real threat..."