"Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna Pundits" (FAIR)

[swag]

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2842

Media Advisory

"The Final Word Is Hooray!"
Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna pundits

3/15/06

Weeks after the invasion of Iraq began, Fox News Channel host Brit Hume delivered a scathing speech critiquing the media's supposedly pessimistic assessment of the Iraq War.

"The majority of the American media who were in a position to comment upon the progress of the war in the early going, and even after that, got it wrong," Hume complained in the April 2003 speech (Richmond Times Dispatch, 4/25/04). "They didn't get it just a little wrong. They got it completely wrong."

Hume was perhaps correct--but almost entirely in the opposite sense. Days or weeks into the war, commentators and reporters made premature declarations of victory, offered predictions about lasting political effects and called on the critics of the war to apologize. Three years later, the Iraq War grinds on at the cost of at least tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Around the same time as Hume's speech, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas declared (4/16/03): "All of the printed and voiced prophecies should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent. Otherwise, they will return to us in another situation where their expertise will be acknowledged, or taken for granted, but their credibility will be lacking."

Gathered here are some of the most notable media comments from the early days of the Iraq War.


Declaring Victory

"Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?"
(Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)


"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best to use it."
(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)


"Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention."
(NPR's Bob Edwards, 4/28/03)

The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."
(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)


"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back."
(Newsweek's Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)


"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)


. . . much much more

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. In a way

I'm glad things didn't go the way they planned. Otherwise we would be living in a military state by now.

[Just Me]

2. I'd love to see a series done on each and every single one of these,...

,...war whores in any broad-reaching publication or media broadcast. They deserve to be confronted with EVERY BULLSHIT comment and forced to eat it.

Wimpy, worthless, dishonorable, dishonest sacks-o-corporate-craps! :grr:

[swag]

4. Matthews is certainly a star of this show.

He is quite some cheerleader for the rotten policies of the Bush administration.

[Nabia2004]

6. yes, and then publish them in a book - nt

[Tanuki]

3. kicked

and recommended. Thanks for posting this!

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

5. A recommendation and a kick.

I'd like for each of these blathering pundits to EAT IT.

[swag]

7. Just a couple more excerpts from an article well worth reading

"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.... I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war....

"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, "The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated." Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.

"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."

(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)

"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

[Just Me]

8. Oh, *LOL* yes. Scarborough definitely owes many MANY apologies.

Butthead!!!

And Matthews, what a schmuck!!

[swag]

9. Did you read the one from Fred Barnes saying that

winning the war was the hard part, but building a democracy would be easy compared to that?

Such wisdom.

[LondonReign2]

10. Fred Barnes has to be one of the stupiest humans alive

n/t

[Catrina]

21. *lol* ~ that was the day Chris Matthews fell in love!! The infamous

'flight suit' day, I think! You can hear the frustration in his voice. Why doesn't everyone see what he sees? A real-life, hero jumping out of a fighter jet onto the deck of a great war ship, declaring victory for his country?? What's not to like? :rofl:

These rightwingers never grew up. They're living out their childhood fantasies where we're always the good guys, the heroes ~ but what's twisted about them is the characters they choose as heroes!!

There's some deep pathology that ought to be explored that causes them to choose the most cowardly of men to be their heroes while they thrash what you might think would be their real ideals, those who actually did fight for their country.

I hope someone in the field of psychology can one day explain this phenomenon ~ it's widespread in the current Republican party leadership and among their mouthpieces.

[Jara sang]

11. Media ghouls

Brit Hume is their King.

On edit: Here is his address and phone # call him and let him know how much he is despised.

Brit Hume - [phone] - 3676 Eastview Ln, Delaplane, VA 20144

[understandinglife]

12. Mathews: "Check it out. The women like this war."

:puke:



Be The Bu$h Opposition - 24/7

[swag]

16. That guy shouldn't even have a show on cable access. What a tool.

"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)

[Maru Kitteh]

13. In a perfect world

we could just BULLDOZE 99% of the congress and senate along with the White House and every major American network news agency and start over.

It's a nice fantasy.

[swag]

14. Robert McChesney, for one, predicted the current sorry state of

our "free press" almost a decade ago in his slim but concise volume Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy.

It has been so sickening to watch the trends identified by McChesney, Chomsky, Gore Vidal, and others metastasize to where we're now engulfed by them, whether we choose to switch off or not.

[Cults4Bush]

15. We shoudl start a "remember when" campaign and email their words back

to them over and over again.

They took thuggish and arrogant glee over an illegal, immoral, unjustified war.


I hope they bathe in depleted uranium and tell the extra 250,000 dead Iraqi souls that it really was worth it. I mean we hate you but we liberated you anyway... aren't we swell?

[Just Me]

17. Kicking for my pacific buddies!!!!

:hug:

[genie_weenie]

18. Darn it!

I was going to curse you out for stealing my thunder but your post beat me by 2 and a half hours!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=670499&mesg_id=670499

I salute you sir!

[swag]

19. Loads of dupes around here, and lots of thunder stolen.

I salute your good taste in material to post.

The more people see it, the merrier.

[TankLV]

20. We need to shove this in their faces

and then shove it up their asses.

WE TOLD YOU SO, YOU REPUKE ASSWIPES! YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED - AND IMPRISONED.