Eric Boehlert takes on ‘Lapdogs’

May 4, 2006

Readers will definitely want to check out Eric Boehlert’s book excerpt in Salon.com today, in which we get a lengthy look at the new book, “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.” Boehlert calls it a look insider “one of the great journalistic collapses of our time,” and if today’s excerpt is any indication, he makes a pretty compelling case.

Battered by accusations of a liberal bias and determined to prove their conservative critics wrong, the press during the run-up to the war — timid, deferential, unsure, cautious, and often intentionally unthinking — came as close as possible to abdicating its reason for existing in the first place, which is to accurately inform citizens, particularly during times of great national interest. Indeed, the MSM’s failings were all the more important because of the unusually influential role they played in advance of the war-of-choice with Iraq. […] To oppose the invasion vocally was to be outside the media mainstream and to invite scorn.

I found this exchange particularly interesting.

While some journalists admitted their mistakes, most refused to admit it was political pressure from the right and a fear of being labeled unpatriotic that fueled the timidity. Instead, journalists offered up head-scratching explanations for their timorous prewar performance. PBS’s Jim Lehrer suggested journalists just weren’t smart enough to have foreseen all the troubles that would plague Iraq following the invasion. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Lehrer was asked by host Matthews about the press’s wartime performance. Matthews noted, “During [the] course of the war, there was a lot of snap-to-it coverage. We’re at war. We have to root for the country to some extent. You’re not supposed to be too aggressively critical of a country at combat, especially when it’s your own.” Matthews asked Lehrer if he thought the press had failed to provide “critical analysis” in the months before the war.

Lehrer: I do. The word “occupation,” keep in mind, Chris, was never mentioned in the run-up to the war. It was “liberation.” So as a consequence, those of us in journalism never even looked at the issue of occupation.

Matthews: Because?

Lehrer: Because it just didn’t occur to us. We weren’t smart enough to do it. I agree. I think it was a dereliction of our — in retrospective.

There’s a lot in Salon’s excerpt, so take a look.

I agree only partly with that analysis. My perception was that the editorial boards of the newspapers I read and submit letters to were actively pushing the idea that war was inevitable (and even courageous and desirable), and that the time for debate was over, when in fact the time for debate was just beginning. I think many of the media owners fondly remembered how, during the first gulf war, we were all glued to our TV’s and were buying vast numbers of newspapers and newsmagazines, and I think they viewed a second Gulf War as a wonderful thing for their business, and so they favored it. They actively dismissed dissent and belittled and ignored criticisms and concerns about the war. Hearst would have been proud.

  • I think part of the problem is the “Vietnam Effect.”

    Everyone in this country is so afraid of even the appearance of not supporting the troops. The problem arises when that fear overrides the questions that absolutely need to be asked before a country goes to war: Why are we going to war? Is it the right thing to do, or is there another solution? Are the reasons given real or imagined? What happens after the “fighting” is over?

    These questions weren’t asked. Not because journalists are idiots (well, they might be, but that’s for another discussion) but because ever since Vietnam, the media — and the public in general — walk on eggshells when disucssing large-scale military actions.

    What they fail to realize is that you can question the motives of those in charge of the war without questioning the bravery and dedication of those who actually fight it.

  • The media has become too self-conscious of what other’s think of it. They spend too much time looking into a mirror and wondering about their self-image than looking through a magnifying glass or microscope at who and what is the news.

    The recent Colbert splash is a perfect case in point: propriety, etiquette and how the press itself was embarrassed are at the center of the news stories and not whether what Colbert said exposed underlying truths.

  • Unholy, I disagree. Those of us who remembered or invoked Vietnam saw this immediately as “another Vietnam”, a unjust war from which we couldn’t extricate ourselves, a quagmire. Vietnam, unfortunately, wasn’t mentioned enough in the run up. It was all, don’t be soft on terrorism and the Decider had sold Iraq as a terrorist country to the frightened masses.
    Sadly, if the media is as ignorant as Jim Lehrer suggests, we’re in more dire straits than I thought. You didn’t have to be genius to see that Iraq was a seriously wrong move–including the fact that it shortchanged the real terrorist pursuit of Bin Laden in Afghanistan. It was nakedly obvious on every front–as were all of Dear Leader’s possible screwed up reasons for dragging us there. I would prefer to think the media did in the country for reasons of money, sloth, or intimidation. God, I can’t believe it’s come to that…

  • Frak–
    Actually, my point wasn’t that Iraq is not another Vietnam (it is … although I admit I’m only in my mid-30s and only know from history books, shows, my father — who served in the Navy — and my father in law — who did two tours in the Army).

    My point was that service members returning from Vietnam were treated like shit and, as a society, we’re so afraid of that happening again that many held their tongues in the lead up to Iraq.

    Does that make sense, or am I just doing a poor job of explaining myself?

  • The quote from Lehrer jogged my memory of the run up. I recall being absolutely disgusted with the laundry list of obvious facts that the MSM were failing to point out in their evening news. (Anyone else remember that Bush campaigned on the idea of cleaning up Iraq? How was it surprise to anyone that Iraq was a target once he was in office?)

    Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time then to sit down and watch the Lehrer Newshour and Frontline like I do now. Does anyone remember or has anyone done research on the overall viewpoint the PBS shows were taking in the run up to the invasion? My memory tells me they were more neutral than the networks, but I don’t seem to remember them being outright doubting of the Administrations claims. After the invasion, I remember plenty of Frontline expose’s. But back then, my memory is fuzzy.

  • Most Americans have forgotten the extent to which, as noted in an earlier CB topic today, America lost it’s mind after 9/11. Unlike Gulliani who encouraged his city not give in to fear, GWB fanned the nation’s fear and the people went along. The thought that our president was an incompetent, misguided and oportunistic idiot was scarier than anything our enemies might do to us, and so, unthinkable. America rallied around the flag, and Bush, because there was nothing else.

    In a spirit of patriotism that I’ll never forget, a few of us knew that we were being sold a bill of goods in the lead up to invading Iraq. Others, in their patriotism, blindly supported the president. Unfortunately, their simplistic thinking was easier for most people to grasp than the complex problems critics foresaw, and the critics were shouted down. Thus, the national sentiment, and the misinformation Bush was feeding us, put journalists in a bind. All this came at a time when the press was suffering a form of battered-wife syndrome after years of liberal-bias claims from the right. It was, I believe, a perfect storm.

    None of this is intended to excuse the inexcusable failure of the press to look past the flag waving and misinformation, but I remember thinking at the time journalists were very much between Iraq and a hard place.

    What pisses me off is that the press hasn’t learned anything from its mistakes. For the most part, journalists continue to treat administration propaganda as news, and critics as less than patriots. We’re all up to our eyeballs in shit and the MSM pretends it doesn’t stink.

  • Unholy–You’re quite right that once there were boots on the ground, people were inhibited from criticizing the war, as a policy and in its prosecution, because they were afraid that that would be construed as disrespecting our troops, Vietnam-style. Dear Leader and Cheney also played that card whenever people did speak out too, to effectively stifle dissent.

    My point was that, before the war started, in the run-up, many of us saw Iraq quite clearly as “another Vietnam”, which is shorthand for an ill conceived, futile, immoral quagmire from which both countries will suffer needless deaths and long-lasting negative effects. Although the various rationale(s) given for the Iraq war were different, only guys who had “other priorities” during Vietnam and who can’t learn from history were doomed to make that mistake again. The Decider is a moron who spent that time flying over Texas when he wasn’t already flying high on booze and cocaine. He sure couldn’t see the parallel. With no draft and their fears stoked by the administration, most Americans weren’t inspired to see it. But many of us who lived through that time, and certainly those who would be journalists and pundits, did or should have recognized the obvious from the beginning.

  • Good point on the Fear Factor. People went insane in this country right after 9/11.

    Around the time that the Iraq war was being sold, I knew people who were still AFRAID to take their flags down…. you know, those flags that everyone had splattered all over the place in a knee-jerk reaction immediately after 9/11. It was a year later. They wanted to take the things down. They were were tired of looking at them. They were scared to do it.

    And then the noxious, disgusting slogan “UNITED WE STAND” that was grafitti’d onto most of those flags too! With its tacit implication: DIVIDED WE FALL… and nobody wanted to dare deviate from lockstep, for fear of being the DIVIDER that caused us all to FALL. Or, even more excreable, the ones that said, “AMERICA, OPEN FOR BUSINESS!”. Just nauseating.

    Me, I hacked up a blue United Nations flag graphic that said “UNITED WE STAND” across the bottom. I was going to get one made and fly it, but never got around to it. Flying no flag at all suited me better anyway. But “UNITED WE STAND” makes perfect sense when applied to the human race and not any particular nation, and was certainly the prevailing wisdom of those who were left picking through the rubble after WWII. As a planet, as a race, indeed we either stand united or we will be destroyed by our own nationalist flag-waving and bomb-dropping.

    Flying a U.S. flag in response to 9/11 made zero sense to me then and now; it seemed disrespectful to those who were killed– petulant and defiant rather than understanding and sympathetic. Flying a black flag of mourning or wearing black armbands seemed a lot more appropriate to me then, but they didn’t catch on. It was an occasion for solemn vigils and quiet, dignified mourning, and understanding and introspection, reaching out to understand why, but instead our corporate media pumped it up into a loud and jangly sensationalist howl for vengeance and blood. Not our best moment, by far.

    I avoided getting sucked into the sensationalist bullshit because I didn’t own a TV. It’s what saved me. I read tons of news and analysis stories, kept informed, but all the jingoistic propoganda just never reached me.

    One of the few courageous voices at the time who did in fact watch all the media B.S. but never bought into it was Jello Biafra. For a reminder of what things were like a few years ago, I highly recommend his multi-CD set: “Machine Gun in the Clown’s Hand”.

  • Ahem… if the press had done a decent job of covering the 2000 election, Al Gore would have been president.

    The press covers way too much of the hows instead of the whys.

    The press never really did its job in covering or revisiting why we got into the first gulf war. Should it not have been prevented by a more aggressive, diplomatic posture by the US while Saddam was massing troops and weapons near the Kuwait border? Bush Sr. gave him a green light!

    Same with Panama. We (Bush Sr., Cheney and boys) screwed up big time in not backing up a coup of Panamanian soldiers that had Noriega in custody before the invasion.

    With both Panama and Iraq I, the main press coverage emphasized our use of high tech weaponry.

    It would be good if the press revisited all the wars since WWII and questioned their roles in spreading deceit guised as unquestioning patriotism.

  • Lehrer: Because it just didn’t occur to us. We weren’t smart enough to do it. I agree. I think it was a dereliction of our — in retrospective.

    This person is alleged to be at the top of the profession, working at a publicly-funded network as the host of a publicy-funded news program, and he has the audacity to suggest that he, and others occupying similar heights in the pundit pantheon, were simply “not smart enough” to ask the correct questions regarding the possibility of the occupation of Iraq, “not smart enough” to inform the public regarding discrepancies in the intellingence estimates used to justify the invasion, and “not smart enough” to correct these errors at any time since March of 2003?

    Make no mistake: Lehrer and company’s job is to be a bulwark against the deliberate disinformation eminating from private networks that employ the likes of O’Baloney and Sean Hambone, a bulwark against the Newspeak of the Bush administration. The press, or “the media” as it’s known today, has a CONSTITUTIONALLY-MANDATED ROLE to be the interlocutor of those in power AT ALL TIMES for the protection of the citizenry against the malfeasance of government.

    One hopes that one day Lehrer and company will be smart enough to figure this out.

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