Rich Calls Out His Own

By Big Tent Democrat, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sat Sep 08, 2007 at 10:01:19 PM EST
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Kudos to Frank Rich for taking the Media to task on Iraq, Petraeus and the "Surge. I especially liked this:

What's surprising is not that this White House makes stuff up, but that even after all the journalistic embarrassments in the run-up to the war its fictions can still infiltrate the real news. After Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, two Brookings Institution scholars, wrote a New York Times Op-Ed article in July spreading glad tidings of falling civilian fatality rates, they were widely damned for trying to pass themselves off as tough war critics (both had supported the war and the surge) and for not mentioning that their fact-finding visit to Iraq was largely dictated by a Department of Defense itinerary.
But this has not impeded them from posing as quasi-journalistic independent observers elsewhere ever since, whether on CNN, CBS, Fox or in these pages, identifying themselves as experts rather than Pentagon junketeers. Unlike Armstrong Williams, the talking head and columnist who clandestinely received big government bucks to "regularly comment" on No Child Left Behind, they received no cash. But why pay for what you can get free? Two weeks ago Mr. O'Hanlon popped up on The Washington Post op-ed page, again pushing rosy Iraq scenarios, including an upbeat prognosis for economic reconstruction, even though the G.A.O. found that little of the $10 billion earmarked for reconstruction is likely to be spent. . .

More....

Anchoring the "CBS Evening News" from Iraq last week, Katie Couric seemed to be drinking the same Kool-Aid (or eating the same lobster tortellini) as Mr. O'Hanlon. As "a snapshot of what's going right," she cited Falluja, a bombed-out city with 80 percent unemployment, and she repeatedly spoke of American victories against "Al Qaeda." Channeling the president's bait-and-switch, she never differentiated between that local group he calls "Al Qaeda in Iraq" and the Qaeda that attacked America on 9/11. Al Qaeda in Iraq, which didn't even exist on 9/11, may represent as little as 2 to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency, according to a new investigation in The Washington Monthly by Andrew Tilghman, a former Iraq correspondent for Stars and Stripes. . . .

Well done Mr. Rich.

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Rich Calls Out His Own | 11 comments (11 topical)

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The rot is pervasive (5.00 / 3) (#1)
by kovie on Sat Sep 08, 2007 at 11:07:09 PM EST

Pollack is married to Andrea Koppel, Ted's daughter and CNN congressional (and formerly State Dept) correspondent who has been fairly hard on Dems since they took over last January. Ted is best friends with Colin Powell, who helped sell the war despite his having come out as a semi-critic recently. It's clearly a beltway--or, more broadly, media, think tank and political establishment--thing, it's corrupt (intellectually and morally if not actually), it's pervasive, and it largely determines how we get our news and opinion on the important issues of the day.

These are people who are largely driven by careerism, social ambition, power, money, and the approval of their social and professional peers. They rarely look beyond their small and inbred circles, and dare not push the envelope of what is currently considered to be acceptable thought, because the social, professional and economic rewards for not doing so--and the punishment for doing so--are quite formidable, and few will take such risks--or need to, given the way this system is set up. This happens in every advanced society that has reached a certain level of stability and success. The French had their Versailles, the British their Victorians, the Germans their Junkers, and now we have our...Beltway Elite?

It's clearly going to take something major to break its hold on our policy, political and media power structure. What that might be, I don't know. But it's going to have to come from outside, be it from the netroots, activism, alternative media, major economic events, etc. These things never self-destruct so much as they prompt outside forces to bring them down.

Parallels? (none / 0) (#7)
by Edger on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 08:20:23 AM EST

They rarely look beyond their small and inbred circles, and dare not push the envelope...

(?) The Washington Consensus Of Iraq reality is reduceable to the seemingly unquestioned (by politicians inside the beltway) assumption that Washington not only has the right to and must make political and social decisions for Iraq, but has the right to invade and occupy, IOW that they dare not push the envelope of what is currently considered to be acceptable thought, because the social, professional and economic rewards for not doing so--and the punishment for doing so--are quite formidable.

(?) The majority consensus among the inside the beltway media is that they dare not push the envelope of what is currently considered to be acceptable thought, because the social, professional and economic rewards for not doing so--and the punishment for doing so--are quite formidable.

.....................
It's clearly going to take something major to break its hold on our policy, political and media power structure. What that might be, I don't know. But it's going to have to come from outside [the beltway].

Two problems, one solution?

Re the first: They would notice if enough people turned the tables on them and used fear to motivate them, instead of voting simply out of fear of republicans.

If Democrats were filled with fear that they would lose Congress and the presidency UNLESS the occupation was ended before the 2008 elections, they would end the occupation of Iraq.

Re the second: Bloggers. Alternative media. The established media would notice if enough people turned the tables on them and used fear to motivate them by ignoring them and their advertising (defund them), instead of taking the crap they spew as gospel.

Social movements and education one on one, IOW, for both inextricably connnected problems? Keep blogging?


: That is rather clumsily put... (none / 0) (#8)
by Edger on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 08:25:55 AM EST

Maybe someone can refine the idea?

I'll take some lobster tortellini! (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by andgarden on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 12:19:38 AM EST

As Murrow said (5.00 / 4) (#3)
by tnthorpe on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 12:51:39 AM EST

concerning TV, ""This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck."

~Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) convention in Chicago (15 October 1958)

Unlike Rich, I don't think that America has ever had dependably "real news" from the corporate media, though there have been real news people who have made a difference.

As the Bush Administration ramps up for a conflict with Iran, by air or other means, while continuing on at great cost with the failed occupation of Iraq, it looks like business as usual for the infotainment industry. Looking at who owns the infotainment industry, can anyone be surprised?

The Bush Administration has gone out of its way to portray any criticism of or dissent from its extraordinarily hardline positions as unpatriotic and until that basic false premise is done away with, I can't see the infotainment girls and boys getting their hairdos wrecked for something as banal as questioning the party doxa.

Rich's column makes me appreciate the work of Seymour Hersh, Bill Moyers, Michael Ware, Jane Mayer, Robert Fisk, The Nation, ... (and you all have your lists too) all the more. If it weren't for work by these fine folk and others like them, the situation so ably limned by Rich would be cause for complete despair.

Pithy phrases like this one: (5.00 / 2) (#4)
by oculus on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 01:01:51 AM EST

identifying themselves as experts rather than Pentagon junketeers

Why I always read Frank Rich. Well, not to mention I always agree with him.

when frank rich apologizes (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by cpinva on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 05:20:15 AM EST

for helping elect bush in the first place, then, and only then, will i consider taking anything he says with less than a sack of salt.

note how he neglected to point out that it was his, and his cohort, maureen dowd's (among other pseudo-liberal "journalists") who made up the pack of lies about gore, that eventually helped get bush (a raging incompetent from his earliest days on the planet) elected in 2000, and re-elected in 2004. they spent 2003 attacking kerry.

so no, i don't think mr. rich is particularly bright, nor i am impressed with his column.

: The worst (5.00 / 2) (#6)
by tnthorpe on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 06:14:14 AM EST

thing I could find FR saying about Gore was this: "Mr. Gore is still the overcalculating child of the expediencies of Washington, where no principle is written in stone for longer than a polling cycle."
Rich also vented his spleen on W in a similarly dismissive tone; he was an equal opportunity snark. Rich's election fatigue led him to miss Bush's dangerousness and discount Gore's character, which remain serious lapses in his judgment.
As I recall it, Gore ran a miserable campaign and then screwed up the Florida recount, which is hardly Rich's fault. The Gore we've seen since wasn't much in evidence in 2000 when he was more worried about de-Clintonizing himself than anything else.
Had Gore been more Democrat and less DLC, Rich would have been an irrelevance. Seems like the conversation about the Dems today isn't a whole lot different, what is it exactly that they do stand for now?

tnthorpe (none / 0) (#9)
by cpinva on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 03:50:42 PM EST

if that's all you could find, you didn't bother lifting your finger to click your mouse.

here's a link to multiple frank rich idiocies, with regards to gore. what cave are you living in?

you can also go to bob somerby's blog:

for much more in the way of "richism's".

have fun, and be enlightened.

ok, i don't know (none / 0) (#10)
by cpinva on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 03:52:12 PM EST

why those didn't show. go to:

www.dailyhowler.com

do a google search of the web site for "frank rich". it will come back with a treasure trove.

: Take a look (none / 0) (#11)
by tnthorpe on Sun Sep 09, 2007 at 04:44:33 PM EST

at this from Corrente and here too.
I saw the howler stuff too. Luckily my cave has cable, though I'm not too sanguine about it's being enlightening.
Gore Vidal, a relative that Al Gore might have wanted to pay more attention to, once said that in America we have two right wings of the same party. Most of Rich's criticisms, rude or not, were based on the idea that there wasn't much difference between R and D, and that the election itself was a scripted, vacuous, cosmetic media event. Unfortunately Gore ran such a poor campaign, appointing Lieberman (DLC chairman) as VP, that he didn't shake the "Gap vs Banana Republic." Now, even with the stakes higher, still the Dems aren't putting much sunlight between themselves and failed Republican policies.
Politics is a contact sport. The best way to push back against Rich would have been to run to the wide open left, which is where you can find Gore now, more or less.
I wish Gore would run, the post-2000, outspoken, argumentative, passionate Gore. I'd vote for him. I hope Rich's column helps give Dems today a spine. I don't see either happening.