The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion is bound to attract a lot
of media coverage, but scant recognition will go to the pundits who
helped to make it all possible.
Continuing with long service to the Bush administration’s
agenda-setting for war, prominent media commentators were very busy
in the weeks before the invasion. At the Washington Post, the op-ed
page’s fervor hit a new peak on Feb. 6, 2003, the day after Colin
Powell’s mendacious speech to the U.N. Security Council.
Post columnist Richard Cohen explained that Powell was utterly
convincing. “The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some
of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its
detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn’t accounted
for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains
them,” Cohen wrote. “Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could
conclude otherwise.”
Meanwhile, another one of the Post’s syndicated savants, Jim
Hoagland, led with this declaration: “Colin Powell did more than
present the world with a convincing and detailed X-ray of Iraq’s
secret weapons and terrorism programs yesterday. He also exposed the
enduring bad faith of several key members of the U.N. Security
Council when it comes to Iraq and its ‘web of lies,’ in Powell’s
phrase.” Hoagland’s closing words banished doubt: “To continue to say
that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now
believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will
ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don’t believe
that. Today, neither should you.”
Impatience grew among pundits who depicted the U.N.’s inspection
process as a charade because Saddam Hussein’s regime obviously
possessed weapons of mass destruction. In an essay appearing on Feb.
13, 2003, Christopher Hitchens wrote: “Those who are calling for more
time in this process should be aware that they are calling for more
time for Saddam’s people to complete their humiliation and subversion
of the inspectors.”
A few weeks later, on March 17, President Bush prefaced the imminent
invasion by claiming in a televised speech: “Should Saddam Hussein
choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure
has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win
it.”
In the same speech, noting that “many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a
translated radio broadcast,” Bush offered reassurance. “I have a
message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be
directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not
against you.”
The next day, Hitchens came out with an essay featuring similar
assurances, telling readers that “the Defense Department has evolved
highly selective and accurate munitions that can sharply reduce the
need to take or receive casualties. The predictions of widespread
mayhem turned out to be false last time -- when the weapons [in the
Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate.” And, he added, “it can now
be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight against a
regime and not a people or a nation.”
With the full-scale attack underway, the practicalities were evident
from network TV studios. “The American public knows the importance of
this war,” Fox News pundit and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred
Barnes proclaimed a few days after the invasion began. “They are not
as casualty sensitive as the weenies in the American press are.”
And what about the punditry after the ballyhooed “victory” in Iraq?
Researchers at the media watch group FAIR (where I’m an associate)
have exhumed statements made by prominent media cheerleaders who were
flush with triumph. Often showing elation as Baghdad fell, U.S.
journalists lavished praise on the invasion and sometimes aimed
derisive salvos at American opponents of the military action.
One of the most gleeful commentators on network television was
MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews. “We’re all neo-cons now,” he
crowed on April 9, 2003, hours after a Saddam Hussein statue tumbled
in Baghdad.
Weeks later, Matthews was still at it, making categorical
declarations: “We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a
guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical,
who’s not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or
Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who’s president.
Women like a guy who’s president. Check it out. The women like this
war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It’s simple.”
Simplistic was more like it. And, in the rush of stateside enthusiasm
for war on Iraq, centrist pundits like Matthews -- apt to sway with
the prevailing wind -- were hardly inclined to buck the jingoistic
storm.
Pseudo-patriotic hot air remained at gale force on Fox News Channel,
still blowing strong. “Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have
demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces
swift and relatively bloodless victory,” Tony Snow told viewers in
late April. “The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered
skeptics’ complaints.”
What passes for liberalism on Fox also cheered and gloated. Sean
Hannity’s weak debating partner, Alan Colmes, threw down a baiting
challenge on April 25. “Now that the war in Iraq is all but over,”
Colmes demanded, “should the people in Hollywood who opposed the
president admit they were wrong?”
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Part of this article has been adapted from Norman Solomon’s latest book,
“War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For
information, go to:
www.WarMadeEasy.com