Categorical Aperitif

I made the mistake of catching a few minutes of ABC World News with Charles Gibson last night, and I am still pissed off. They did a brief story on what according to them was "the talk of Washington" yesterday: the optimistic "A War We Just Might Win" op-ed by Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack in yesterday's New York Times. I'm here to tell ya that ABC's treatment of the story fit the mold described by ThinkProgress (speaking of CNN and Fox):

• The story was framed in "surprise" terms: something unexpected happened today re. Iraq.
• What was it, you ask? Why, two military analysts who are "long and persistent critics of the Bush Administration's handling of the war" published an op-ed in the New York Times that speaks of "significant changes taking place" in Iraq; they say that, on a recent eight-day trip to Iraq, they were "surprised by the gains" they saw and that they saw "the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with."
• Nowhere in the piece did either Gibson or the three correspondents interviewed—Terry McCarthy, Martha Raddatz, and Jake Tapper—bother to mention that BOTH of these so-called critics were, in fact, longtime supporters of the war and that Pollack had even published a book-length argument for invading Iraq back in 2002—which kinda makes the whole framing of them as longtime critics of the war who've suddenly seen the light, well, seriously misleading, huh? (True, ABC did call them "critics of the Bush Administration's handling of the war" and not "critics of the war," but the spin of the piece was still dishonest and misleading. ABC could have told their viewers that, oh, by the way, both of these guys have spent a lot of energy championing this whole Iraq misadventure, so maybe, just maybe, they have a vested interest in spinning it pretty now.)
• Nowhere in the piece did the ABC folks bother making the connection that the redoubtable Atrios quickly brought up yesterday: suddenly, there's a bunch of military/pundit-type people talking about "sustainable stability" and "sustainable security" and "sustained stability." Why, a reasonably critically astute person might see this pattern and wonder whether the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed was just another arm of a propaganda campaign designed to imbed yet another asinine euphemism (for horrendous, expensive bloodshed with staying power, as opposed to the kind that's inconsiderate of her needs) and thereby further muddle the national consciousness. D'ya think?

To her credit, Martha Raddatz did note in her brief chunk of the segment that the White House was "thrilled" with the op-ed and was sending it out "to the press corps, anyone who would read it today"; quoth Raddatz, "they are hoping that this buys them more time on the Hill for this surge to continue, but they've been hoping that for a long time." Wow! The Administration desperately needed some encouraging news on Iraq to stave off its Congressional critics, and just in the nick of time, along comes this op-ed—and in the we-all-know-it's-so-liberal New York Times, no less! The universe truly is a thing of wonder.

Let's review:

1. Two "military analyst" supporters of the Iraq invasion spend eight days in Iraq and write an op-ed in the leading national newspaper saying that "the surge" is working better than we think;
2. The White House, which has been facing mounting criticism about its war policy and has been desperate to convince Congress and the American people that the much-vaunted "surge" is working, eagerly pushes this miraculously timed op-ed on the media;
3. The media obligingly pass along the op-ed's optimism—while obligingly calling these longtime war supporters "critics" and obligingly failing to inform their audience about the long record of pro-war punditry that maybe, just maybe, makes these guys less than trustworthy as judges of whether "the surge" is succeeding or not.

Whatever lingering doubts I have about Chomsky and Herman's "Propaganda Model" of the media die a little more every time I turn on my TV, I swear.

Addendum: Silly me, I hadn't even checked in with Glenn Greenwald when I let my simmering rage work itself out in the form of the post above. He went digging through O'Hanlon's and Pollack's old records of pro-war punditry, more recent records of pro-surge punditry, etc., and sums up his findings as pithily as anyone could: "It is more surprising—and more newsworthy—that the sun rose this morning than it is that O'Hanlon and Pollack have announced that the Surge is Succeeding." In-f*cking-deed. Or, even more pithily (emphasis his):

The Op-Ed is an exercise in rank deceit from the start. To lavish themselves with credibility -- as though they are war skeptics whom you can trust -- they identify themselves at the beginning "as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq." In reality, they were not only among the biggest cheerleaders for the war, but repeatedly praised the Pentagon's strategy in Iraq and continuously assured Americans things were going well. They are among the primary authors and principal deceivers responsible for this disaster.

A sane media in a sane democracy might actually stop listening to people like these—or at least would stop playing along with their shameless dog-and-pony shows. They might even apologize to their audiences for participating in such consent-manufacturing scams. But do any of us really expect any of these things to happen at this point?