The Opinionated Bastard

How exactly would the war failure be the media’s fault? I mean did they send insufficient troops to maintain security? Did they disband the Iraqi army? I mean exactly how did the media lose the ware?

Brian DeSpain
I think the new talking point is that it is the media’s fault for sapping the American people of their desire to win the conflict in Iraq.

I agree that the media often does a poor job of reporting a lot of stories, but in this case, it’s just a head-feint away from the the basic fact that reporters aren’t reporting the ‘big picture’ that some people want reported.

A lot of people are still pissed off about the pull-out from Vietnam (because the media eventually stopped trumpeting their war horns) and I imagine the same type of accusations will make the rounds.

Brian, you do make a relevant point: The media didn’t fuxx up the planning or implementation of this Administration’s Iraq plans.

P.S. We aren’t fighting any wars that I know of, at least until Congress declares one.

Blaming the media for whatever happens in Iraq is like blaming me for the Steelers winning the Super Bowl.

Instahick might have a big readership, but he’s too dumb to find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight.

I suggest you amend your language. There is no way the media can be resposable for losing a war that was won easily in less than a week. What we’re really talking about here is an occupation. Until we can use the correct terminology, there is no possibility of an intelligent discussion.

The BBC has an atricle of a reporter going to a Baghdad morturary (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4778380.stm) -sorry, I don’t know how to add a link! The media aren’t saying what is wanted by the powers-that-be, so it is getting the blame. In all fairness, it should be noted that many right-wingers have enough honesty and integrity not to resort to this sort of behavior.

Let’s see - Bush runs the White House, the DOD, CIA, NSA, and all the rest of the executive branch. Republicans run the House and the Senate and approve all of Bush’s spending for Iraq. Republican appointees now dominate much of the Judiciary and have pretty much given Bush a pass on whatever he wants to do - be it torture, indefinite incarceration, or any other violation of our rights.

That means that it must be the Press’s fault if Bush fails in Iraq.

Your self-name perfectly fits your illegitimate logic!

LOL. Does this suprise anyone?? Accountabilty and personal responsibility, two conservative values, have been sacraficed for Bush. When things go wrong bame blame blame, just keep passing that buck. If things keep going like they are, in 8 years or so the Republican party will be the new liberal party.

How bout some more defecit spending and making illegal immigrants legal! How about creating larger more ineffective government and more pork than a bacon factory. How about selling our infrastucture to the country with the highest bid, regardless if they also support terrorism. Oh yeah! Let’s get liberal!

Don’t you people get it? If people in America think we’re winning, then we really will be winning over there. Why does the media always focus on the negative, and not the positive? Like think of all the people who aren’t being executed, killed, or tortured. It has to be a majority of people in Iraq are still alive and living normal lives, but you wouldn’t know that from watching the news or reading the paper. Why won’t they talk about the pro-US government they have just elected, and the fact that the people of Iraq are putting aside their ethnic, tribal, and religious differences that have seperated them for thousands of years and are embracing pro-western, secular, democratic leaders? Or at least we can all believe that that’s the case, wouldn’t we all feel better? If you believe in fairies clap your hands!!

Anything they say the administration said, may not even be true.

unfortunately for your argument, you fail to explain how the press reporting correctly on what the administration says, in any way shape or form impacts whether we win the war in Iraq.

I know it is too scary to contemplate that your beer buddy W is an incompetent jerk who screwed the pooch on this one, and our country with it, but “blame the media”?! how low can you go?

W should have read his daddy’s book, especially the chapter on why he didn’t march to Baghdad during the gulf war… he (G H W Bush) said the country would descend into a civil war and that there wouldn’t be anything we would be able to do about it.

Well, scapegoating is what we call politics, these days. That’s not new, of course, but some people have taken the art to new levels.

I have a hard time imagining how things would be different in Iraq if the media were painting a pretty picture of it and the American public’s support were unianimous. Even when the majority of people still thought the war was a good idea, and approved of Bush’s handling of it, recruiters were struggling to make their quotas, and troop morale was poor (because of conditions over there, equipment problems, the “backdoor draft”, etc.).

So of course people want to blame the media. They are always a convenient scapegoat: who actually LIKES the media? Nobody. But war is something that can’t be managed by a good PR firm, as the Bush administration has had to learn the hard way.

I’m dissappointed that the resident Opinionated Bastard hasn’t stepped in to comment. And that no-one is supporting ‘em.

I don’t dispute the fact that positive things are happening in Iraq, but when you look at the country as a whole, it’s hard to suggest that things are progressing for the better.

People who want Iraq to implode just so they can sit back and say “Ah ha! I told you so!” are assholes… but blaming them for the failure of the Iraqi campaign?

Come on, don’t you have anyone over here to support your position? A debate is much better than an echo box.

Maybe I shouldn’t blog at 4AM when I can’t sleep…

I don’t know if the press will get 100% of the blame. But the constant negative spin on everything that happens in the occupation is draining. I blame the media for their own incompetence and bias.

Is Bush performing perfectly? No.

Is the media covering Iraq fairly, or even well? No!

There are a lot of things going wrong with the occupation, but I don’t see the media covering those; they go for the cheap, dramatic, easy story. There are a lot of things going right with the occupation, but I don’t see the media covering those; they go for the cheap, dramatic, easy story.

Most of you aren’t regular readers of my blog, so you haven’t seen the times I’ve posted negative things about the occupation. But in my experience, its better to do more of the good things in any endeavor, than to do less of the bad. Its often easier to do more of what you’re doing right.

So how do I blame the media? Well, ultimately, in a democracy, its the voters fault. Can you really argue that we the people have been correctly and objectively informed so we could make good decisions? I don’t think so.

I think its much easier to argue that the media is out to make a buck, and in that quest, has emphasized the negative, and outright lied. You know, when I watch the local weather reports I think we’re all going to die. The Iraq news just makes me cringe its so obviously twisted.

The meme may be the Bush lied, but the media lies and distorts every day. I don’t know if we could have occupied WWII Germany with a press as hostile as this one.

So will they get 100% of the blame? No.

But how can ANY of us, right or left make informed decisions with the current media environment?

So yeah, I blame them. They are such a fountain of misinformation that we seem to be left with either no trust in our leaders, or full trust in our leaders. The media has taken away all our other choices.

Our leaders are neither that bad, nor that good.

Is Bush lying/mistaken/whatever about Iraq? Probably. Is the media? Yes. So I live in a world where I have to choose between two liars?

I don’t like that, and yes, I blame the media for their own incompetence and bias.

Opinionated Bastard, lets see: - Bastard - Check; Opinionated - hmm, maybe more like ignorant.

There, The Ignorant Bastard, much better.

Please apply this correction to the rest of your site. It has a much more accurate ring.

A bad results war is better for the media to report than a good results war (ratings).

Just as a war is better to report than no war.

I hope you were trumping this “media’s fault” thing during the run-up (rah rah) to the war itself.

Still no indication of how, specifically, the media has damaged the effort on the ground in Iraq….

There are huge problems with the media — no question about that. As others have pointed out, they do find bad news more interesting than good news, and that is a problem. But it would be simplistic to say that this is the result of “liberal bias”. It is really more of a commercial bias. News is now big business, and news agencies expect to make big profits.

It is easier to sell news that whips up fear and anger than news that puts people at ease. The media were perfectly willing to help the Bush administration whip up fear and anger between 9/11/01 & the invasion of Iraq. If the media really had a strong liberal bias, they would have been much more critical of Bush’s justification for the war and his lack of pre-planning for the occupation.

I didn’t have a blog then, but I did remember thinking “oh my god, the media is trying to get us into a war with Iraq (or pretty much any other country the State Department talks about)”.

If you read the above, you’ll see that I’m not claiming a liberal bias (nor have I ever), I’m just claiming a commericial bias.

As far as media damaging the effort on the ground in Iraq: come on, if they treated the claims of the enemy with HALF the skepticism they treat the claims of the military, I think this would be a very different war.

Dude, I’m calling the cops on you, Opinionated Bastard. You MUST be on drugs.

You think that the average Iraqi who wants us gone has been influenced by CBS News? You think that they’re thinking to themselves, “If only those Democrats/media were behind the war effort, then the occupation would be a GOOD thing! Who needs electricity?” Or Al Qaeda’s thinking, “You know, if these guys were only united at home, their tanks would be a LOT harder to blow up. I don’t think I could bring myself to build a car bomb if the Democrats would just care about their own national security.”

I mean, come on! This is the argument you’re reduced to! Explain how it’s possible that this would change the conflict on the ground in any way? We’d still have too few troops on the ground. We’d still have let Bin Laden get away. We’d still have disbanded the army. We’d still have failed in the reconstruction. And the opposition against us would be just as fierce.

If you haven’t heard, part of bin Laden’s strategy, as he used against the Soviets, is to drain the opponent’s resources. He’s already drained 2 trillion from our economy (just in the iraq war), and wounded 25,000 of our young. They would still be attacking us just as visciously if we were “united at home.”

I can’t wait to hear your response, O’ Bastard.

“It would a very different war”, you say: but how — specifically? I’m not trying to be difficult: I really what to know how it would be different.

The American people, as a whole, are not fighting this war. We send a small group of people to do that for us. The media probably has some effect on their morale, but if things are going much better over there than reported, the troops on the ground should know that. Is it really important to them that CNN and the New York Times support what they are doing?

They are most affected by what their friends and family think of the war, and most people with close connections to the soldiers have remained strong supporters of the war. Yes, I’m sure it is harder for soldiers and their loved ones to maintain morale in an atmosphere that is more critical of the war, but I don’t see how higher morale on the part of American soldiers would have a lot of influence on what insurgents are doing.

As for the support of the general American populace, I don’t know how that would make a difference, either. Would Congress be more supportive if the population were more supportive? I don’t see it. As I said before, even when the public supported the war, troops were still badly prepared and equipped. Supposedly it was the generals and not Congress that has kept the troop deployment at current levels. We have already thrown an unbelievable amount of money at Iraq. Granted, much of that has been stolen by corrupt contractors, but better support for the war wouldn’t change that.

It is always important to determine who to blame in advance of a problem.

A couple of questions:

Do you have any basis for your blame other than an aversion to actually blame the architects of this “war”. Did the media create the conditions for a civil war to break out? Did the media ignore the possibility of a civil war? Can you cite me chapter and verse what the causal connection between particular actions taken by the socalled “media” and particular “losing scenarios”.

A final question: Are you seriously going to base your knowledge of what is going on in IRAQ, by the anecdotal ramblings of one person traveling around in one city of a massive country? Think it’s a walk in the park to get to the airport? Are all of the current civilian casualties simply collateral damage in a mop up action? Do you (or any one you care to cite) have any more real handle on the political realities occurring in this country? Do you really think that the Kurds want anything to do with either the Sunnis or the Shias?

I will say this: You have taken the actions of our president to heart and have used him as an example of where to place the blame—anyone but me and my buddies (even though we’re the ones who stuck our hands in the bee hive).

Blaming the media at all for the war is another example of a ruthlessly brilliant rhetorical strategy by whomever is responsible for these kinds of things. Or maybe it is just a kind of evolutionary process by which the most useful memes get repeated ad infinitum.

But think about it: if people really believe the media are significantly responsible for the failures of the occupation, that belief is just going to get stronger and stronger as the situation gets worse and worse, because even legitimate reporting of it will appear to get more and more negative — reinforcing the idea perfectly. Even if the cause-and-effect is totally backward, people who buy into it will highly unlikely to question it. People who hate the media will just hate it more and more, making it harder and harder for them to accept information that challenges their pre-conceived notions about the media.

Damn — if only the neo-cons were as good at colonizing a country as they are at colonizing our civil discourse….

Hi OP,

I’m new to your blog… are the comments always this full of snarky lefties?

Regarding your posting, I think the relevant question is not “Why can’t the big guys get it right?” but “Why AREN’T the big guys getting it right.” They are certainly capable of accurately reporting what General X said or what the range of estimates is for body count from one attack or another. What they do instead is to relentlessly forcefit every story into their predetermined narrative about how Bush is driving the world down the toilet and relentlessly find the worst estimates from the most biased observers and report them as “estimates of as many as 1300” weasel words to still be “truthful” (in scare quotes).

To the people here who can’t imagine how CNN International, the BBC, Al Jazeera or even domestic news networks could possibly influence or encourage the terrorists or the outcome of the war, I would say this: The networks certainly seem to think they can affect the outcome or their reporting would be less attuned to their objective.

In these reflexivly ant-war comments you can see how people refuse to understand the effect of the mainstream legacy media reporting incorrectly on the war. Every single last one spews with full blown hostility that all the negative stories are the fault of the military and the leaders. The entire point about factual inaccuracies and outright lies by left wing reporters doesn’t register to them for a single instant, because they simply want to believe that Bush can do nothing right. It’s like trying to rationally explain to a fundamentalist leftist that their “god” isn’t real.

Now in my personal opinion I don’t think we will lose the war because of the media’s distortions of the truth. Leftist lunatics worship pretense, and they produce a staggering amount of it. The fact that the msm covers up the positive news obviously harms the morale of the troops, but the military culture is very distinct and quite seperate from the so-called “progressive” (actually regressive nowadays) mindset.

Why do these attempts at discussion always have to descend into partisanship? I am just trying to understand, specifically, how people reading this site think that the media’s portrayal of the war has hurt the war effort. My political persuasion or feelings about Bush have nothing to do with your ability to address that question.

I never claimed that it’s not possible for the media to affect the war. I just think that it’s very easy to blame the media without having any specific basis for the claim. If you can’t answer the question more specifically, then maybe you should rethink the claim itself.

Blame the media for the loss of the war? That’s the stupidiest thing I’ve heard in a while. First of all, the war was not to be won. That wasn’t it’s purpose. I could go on and on. Frankly not worth my time.

Fundamentally, I blame the media for being an incompetent news source, not so much for losing the war.

They have become “news entertainment” in the same way that wrestling is “sports entertainment”.

It wouldn’t irritate me half so much if I had a choice, if UPI still existed as an alternative to the API, etc.