From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Aug 22 2004 - 01:23:03 BST
Hi Platt, Mark and all:
msh Quoted:
"A new study based on a series of seven nationwide polls conducted
from January through September of this year reveals that before and
after the Iraq war, a majority of Americans have had significant
misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war
with Iraq. ...these misperceptions varies significantly
according to individuals' primary source of news.
"Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to
have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch
PBS are significantly less likely."
dmb says:
The Weekly Standard has an equally poor record and helped to spread
misconceptions about the war as much as anyone. Scott Sherman's article,
published in the August 30 issue of "The Nation", tells the sad tale. Enjoy.
Press Watch
by Scott Sherman
A silver lining amid the dismal outpouring of news from Iraq has been
the unbroken parade of conservative (and liberal hawk) commentators
who now admit--with mea culpas, half-apologies and sour complaints
about Bush Administration incompetence--that they were misguided
about the war. "The first thing to say," David Brooks professed in
April, "is that I never thought it would be this bad." "I think it's
a total nightmare and disaster and I'm ashamed that I went against my
own instincts in supporting it," Tucker Carlson has affirmed. Says a
recent New Republic editorial, "The central assumption underlying
this magazine's strategic rationale for war now appears to have been
wrong." But the most influential prowar pundit has thus far held his
tongue: Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, who calls himself an
"unapologetic hawk," and whose journal was the foremost incubation
chamber for neoconservative thinking and strategy on Iraq.
For Kristol and the Standard, Bush's war against Saddam marked the
culmination of a protracted crusade. In 1997 the magazine, owned by
Rupert Murdoch, published a special issue titled "Saddam Must Go: A
How-To Guide." The authors of one article--current US ambassador to
Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz--proclaimed, in language that would later become familiar,
"Saddam is not ten feet tall. In fact, he is weak. But we are letting
this tyrant, who seeks to build weapons of mass destruction, get
stronger."
The events of 9/11 created a historic opportunity for Kristol and
his editors. Within days of the attacks, the Standard had already
identified Saddam Hussein as a principal culprit for the violence.
The cover of the Standard's October 1, 2001, issue contained a
single word--"WANTED"--above stark black-and-white photographs of
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "Evidence that Iraq may have
aided in the horrific attacks of September 11 is beginning to
accumulate," Kristol (and contributing editor Robert Kagan) intoned
in an editorial. Over the next eighteen months, the Standard mounted
a furious campaign against Iraq with a torrent of essays and
editorials that, as we now know, were long on hubris and wishful
thinking, and short on accuracy:
§ "It is not just a matter of justice to depose Saddam. It is a
matter of self defense: He is currently working to acquire weapons of
mass destruction that he or his confederates will unleash against
America and our allies if given the chance." (Max Boot, "The Case for
American Empire," October 15, 2001)
§ "If all we do is contain Saddam's Iraq, it is a virtual
certainty that Baghdad will soon have nuclear weapons." (Gary
Schmitt, "Why Iraq?" October 29, 2001)
§ "Iraq is the only nation in the world, other than the
United States and Russia, to have developed the kind of
sophisticated anthrax that appeared in the letter sent to Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle." (Kagan and Kristol, "Getting
Serious," November 19, 2001)
§ "Today, no one knows how close Saddam is to having a nuclear
device. What we do know is that every month that passes brings him
closer to the prize." (Kagan and Kristol, "What to Do About Iraq,"
January 21, 2002)
§ "According to an Iraqi newspaper...Saddam told the bomb-
makers to accelerate the pace of their work...Saddam has been moving
ahead into a new era, a new age of horrors where terrorists don't
commandeer jumbo jets and fly them into our skyscrapers. They plant
nuclear bombs in our cities." (Kagan and Kristol, "Back on Track,"
April 29, 2002)
This incendiary language, directed at a grieving, traumatized nation,
appeared in the pages of the nation's most influential conservative
journal of opinion--one that has a symbiotic relationship with the
present Administration. "Dick Cheney does send over someone to pick
up thirty copies of the magazine every Monday," Kristol bragged to
the New York Times on the eve of war. And the Washington Post has
reported that Kristol meets regularly with Karl Rove and Condoleezza
Rice. Kristol's clout in Washington, combined with his bellicosity
toward Iraq, inspired in mid-2002 a phrase from columnist Richard
Cohen: "Kristol's war."
A hallucinatory quality infused the Standard's Iraq coverage right up
through the first phase of the war, and beyond. "In all likelihood,
Baghdad will be liberated by April," contributing editor Max Boot
averred in February 2003, adding, "This may turn out to be one of
those hinge moments in history--events like the storming of the
Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall--after which everything is
different." A delusionary note was sounded immediately after the fall
of Baghdad, when a Standard editorial, written by executive editor
Fred Barnes, wondered if George W. Bush would be awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for toppling Saddam.
In mid- to late 2003, as the Iraqi resistance proliferated, the
Standard dug in its heels with a series of editorials demanding
additional resources for the war effort, while simultaneously
expressing a rosy view. "Iraq has not descended into inter-religious
and inter-ethnic violence," the editors announced last September.
"There is food and water. Hospitals are up and running." As recently
as June, the editors informed their readers that "we are actually
winning the war in Iraq," and went on to say "the security situation,
though inexcusably bad, looks as if it may finally be improving;
Moktada al-Sadr seems to have been marginalized, and the Shia center
is holding; there is nothing approaching civil war."
At the same time, the Standard worked assiduously to forge a link
between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Over the past eight months, the magazine
has published three cover stories on the "connection" by staff writer
Stephen Hayes. "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein," Hayes wrote in
November, in an article praised by Cheney, "had an operational
relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in
explosives and weapons of mass destruction...." (Emphasis added.)
Hayes's second cover story arrived on newsstands just weeks before a
staff statement by the 9/11 commission transformed his theory into a
pile of rubble. (In the Standard's June 28 issue, Kristol dismissed
the work of the 9/11 commission as "sloppy" and "unimpressive.")
The performance of Kristol & Co. raises disconcerting questions
about the magazine. Is the Standard, which publishes the work of
respected commentators like Christopher Caldwell, Joseph Epstein and
John DiIulio Jr., a weekly compendium of responsible conservative
opinion, or is it a haven for charlatans, conspiracy theorists and
con men? In a recent appearance on Terry Gross's Fresh Air, Kristol
groused about the Bush Administration's handling of the war but was
rather reticent on the subject of Iraq's WMD. Not so long ago,
Kristol addressed the matter with confidence. Before US troops
entered Baghdad, he assured his readers, "The war itself will clarify
who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction."
The verdict is in; we have the facts; the matter has been clarified.
Writers like David Brooks and Tucker Carlson, who have an extensive
history with the Standard, have already unburdened themselves. It's
time for William Kristol to follow their lead and say he was wrong.
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