FAIR: "Wrong on Iraq? Not Everyone"

[swag]

DUers may recall FAIR's damning recounting of pro-war punditry and puffery:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=669030

Today, FAIR's Steve Rendell illustrates clearly that, despite Republican claims, not everyone got it wrong on Iraq:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2847

As George W. Bush’s approval ratings languished last fall, due in part to the unpopular war, the administration was searching for a “push-back” strategy against Democrats. The White House came up with a variant of the we-were-all-wrong theme, which George W. Bush delivered in a November 11 speech pointing out that while he had been wrong about the weapons, many Democrats had made the same blunder based on the same information.

“That’s why more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence,” Bush told a Pennsylvania audience, “voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.” The day before, Bush National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters: “Seventy–seven senators, representing both sides of the aisle . . . believed, based on the same intelligence, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and imposed an enormous threat to his neighbors and to the world at large.”

Following Bush’s speech, the White House’s media supporters took to the airwaves to echo his defense. Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, appearing on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight (11/11/05), told the host: “One of the things we have to recall here is, every leading Democrat, including the Democrats who had access to the same intelligence information like Jay Rockefeller, approved of the war in Iraq.” National Review editor Rich Lowry told PBS’s NewsHour host Jim Lehrer (11/11/05), “Many Democrats were saying the same thing because they were all looking at the same body of intelligence.” On November 13 Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace declared (11/13/05), “Democrats saw basically the same intelligence the president did and made statements, by and large, that were just as alarmist.”

Though the Washington Post (11/12/05) and Knight Ridder (11/15/05) debunked this partisan version of the claim, showing that the White House had access to far more extensive intelligence, the we-were-all-wrong theme does have a grain of truth to it—particularly when it comes to mainstream journalism. New York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns made a valid point when he told a U.C. Berkeley conference on Iraq and the media (3/18/04): “We failed the American public by being insufficiently critical about elements of the administration’s plan to go to war.” Strong cases for the general failure of mainstream journalism regarding Iraq were featured in the Columbia Journalism Review (5–6/03) and the New York Review of Books (2/26/04).

But the fact that mainstream media in general suspended critical judgment when it came to reporting on pre-war Iraq claims should not be viewed as an excuse—because, in fact, not all mainstream journalists and pundits got it wrong. Some got it right—simply by carrying out the basic journalistic tasks of checking facts and holding the powerful to account. . . .

Among those on Rendell's list of those who got it right:

Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter
Knight Ridder reporters Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay
The Associated Press' Charles J. Hanley

It's worth recalling those who, like many of us here, understood that we weren't being told the truth. And it's worth recognizing that not all mainstream reporters were jingoistic stenographers.

Worth a read.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2847

[mnmoderatedem]

1. correct me if I'm wrong

but didn't more than half of democrat reps in Congress vote against authorizing military action?

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2. I think you're probably right. FAIR focuses on reporting and the media.

"The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public law 107-243, 116 Stat. 1497-1502) was a law passed by the United States Congress authorizing what was soon to become the Iraq War. The authorization was sought by President George W. Bush. Introduced as H.J.Res. 114, it passed the House on October 10 by a vote of 296-133, and by the Senate on October 11 by a vote of 77-23. It was signed into law by President Bush on October 16, 2002."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Resolution_to_Authorize_the_Use_of_United_States_Armed_Forces_Against_Iraq