The Beltway Media Still Irrelevant On Iraq
Posted on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 12:24:14 PM EST
Tags: Media, War In Itraq (all tags)
Glenn Greenwald documents again how the Beltway Media is clueless, but I think he overlooks an important sidebar, it is also remains irrelevant on Iraq. Glenn goes through the atrocious Pelosi in Syria coverage and her rising poll numbers:
Yes, Pelosi's trip to Syria sure did make Democrats look weak and untrustworthy on national security -- just like our brilliant media stars told us it would. After all, the percentage of Americans who trust Democrats over Bush to handle the situation in Iraq increased after Pelosi's trip -- from 54% to 58%. And the gap between those who trust Democrats more than The Great War Leader George W. Bush with regard to the war is now a startling 25 point gap -- up from 20 points as compared to the period before Pelosi went to Syria. . . . These media stars have absolutely no idea what and how "Americans" think. They take the conventional Beltway wisdom they pass amongst one another -- all generated by their White House confidants and other right-wing sources who have long ruled Washington (and therefore "their world") -- and they mindlessly assume it to be true and then run around repeating it without any effort to determine if it is actually true . . .
All true, but consider what happened - their relentless bleating had ZERO effect on public opinion. The Beltway Media has rendered itself irrelevant to the American People when it comes to Bush and Iraq.
The views of the folks back home should be uppermost in the minds of the Democratic Congress when it considers what type of Iraq funding bill should emerge from conference this week:
[O]n troop-withdrawal language, negotiators are likely to bend toward the Senate bill, which says troop withdrawals must begin within 120 days after bill passage but sets a date of March 31, 2008, only as a goal for final withdrawals. The idea, aides said, is to show Democrats as willing to compromise with Bush and to make a veto more difficult to defend.That strategy would make it hard for House Democratic leaders to round up the 218 votes for passage, said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. About 40 antiwar Democrats reluctantly voted for the original House bill, even though they thought it was too weak.
"We had nothing to spare in the last vote," Moran said, "and a number of members have gone home who voted for it and who just heard from their base that they should have stuck with" the hard-line antiwar Democrats who voted against it.
Let me put it this way, if the withdrawal language in this bill is nonbinding, then Reid-Feingold better be the next bill on the table, and the Democrats better vote for it. Otherwise, the Democrats will end up owning co-owning the Iraq Debacle.
In other words, Democrats better listen to the American People, not the irrelevant Beltway media.
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