, writes at TomPaine.com:The American media establishment has launched a major offensive against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
In the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA—the front page of The New York Times .
The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.
He goes on to tell the story of NYT's Michael Gordon, who wrote an article titled, "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say." Gordon made the rounds with his argument that everyone who knows what they're talking about is saying that we stay in Iraq.
If a New York Times military-affairs reporter went on television to advocate for withdrawal of U.S. troops as unequivocally as Gordon advocated against any such withdrawal during his Nov. 15 appearance on CNN, he or she would be quickly reprimanded—and probably would be taken off the beat—by the Times hierarchy. But the paper’s news department eagerly fosters reporting that internalizes and promotes the basic worldviews of the country’s national security state.
That’s how and why the Times front page was so hospitable to the work of Judith Miller during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. That’s how and why the Times is now so hospitable to the work of Michael Gordon.
It's a good point. It might be a good time for the NYT editorial board to step back and ask themselves, "How's this been working for us so far?" The Judith Miller fiasco should've left them a little gunshy about being hawkish in this war.
Tags: news politics media Iraq war military New York Times Norman Solomon
