Wash. Post editorial writers silent on third anniversary of Iraq war they supported
SUMMARY: The Washington Post let pass the third anniversary of the Iraq war without printing an in-house editorial, thereby also foregoing another opportunity to retract or correct significant falsehoods it promulgated in support of the war. By contrast, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times both ran unsigned editorials addressing the war on March 19, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
The Washington Post did not print an editorial marking the third anniversary of the Iraq war on March 19, passing up another opportunity for the Post editorial page to retract pre- and post-invasion falsehoods it promulgated and subsequently tried to defend.
By contrast, on March 19, The New York Times published an editorial titled "The Stuff that Happened," which argued that the "Iraq debacle ought to serve as a humbling lesson for future generations of American leaders." The Los Angeles Times argued in a March 19 editorial that "the occupation of Iraq has been a humbling letdown." Of the three editorials the Post chose to run, however, not one addressed the Iraq war. The Post instead elected to address the federal budget, American oil consumption, and the Washington, D.C., appropriations bill. Rather than expressing its own opinion on the war's third anniversary, the paper featured an op-ed by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld titled "What We've Gained In 3 Years in Iraq," in which Rumsfeld argued:
What we need to understand is that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want the coalition to succeed. They want better futures for themselves and their families. They do not want the extremists to win. And they are risking their lives every day to secure their country.
That is well worth remembering on this anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Elsewhere on the Post's March 19 op-ed page, columnist George F. Will criticized the Iraq war in a column titled "Bleakness in Baghdad," writing: "Three years ago the administration had a theory: Democratic institutions do not just spring from a hospitable culture, they can also create such a culture. That theory has been a casualty of the war that began three years ago today." Conversely, Post columnist Jim Hoagland praised the administration's strategy for drawing down the American military and civilian presence in Iraq in his March 19 column, writing, "But on its face, that strategy is a coherent way of reducing the foreign occupation footprint that fuels much of the conflict in Iraq." On March 20, the Post featured an op-ed by Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jafari titled "My Vision for Iraq."
During a March 8 "Live Online" discussion on the Post's website, editorial page editor Fred Hiatt answered a question from a reader who asked when "The Post will own up in its editorials in its mistake in supporting the war for the wrong reasons." Hiatt replied:
HIATT: I can't speak for the news side, but they have done pretty searching stories on themselves, in my judgment. As for editorials, we've acknowledged that we were mistaken in our assumptions about WMD, and we've written editorials about the implications of that intelligence failure, and we've written editorials along the way trying to explain to readers how we feel about the war as it's progressed, and why.
But as Media Matters for America noted, Hiatt and the Post's editorial writers reported falsehoods by the Bush administration and made assertions of their own in support of the invasion of Iraq that were subsequently proven false. Thus far, the Post has yet to correct or retract those falsehoods, including statements regarding an alleged Iraq-Al Qaeda connection and the Bush administration's use of intelligence.
the Post editorial writers won't admit to mistakes. Is this how adults operate? Doomed to repeat lessons unlearned?
consent.
Absolutely right.
Just for the record: Neither the Boston Globe [leans Liberal] or the Boston Herald[leans Conservative] offered "in-house editorials" yesterday. Both did have op-ed pieces written by columnists.
So perhaps it isn't all that ODD that the Washington Post offered only op-ed columns.
The Boston Herald printed a staff editorial on the 19th titled "Anniversary Shows Freedom's Progress."
[link to news.bostonherald.com]
The Boston Globe printed a staff editorial today (registration required) titled "Needed: Candor on Iraq," in which they wrote that "the war began on March 20, 2003."
[link to www.boston.com]
My bad... we get BOTH newspapers on Sunday...guess I just didn't remember the editorial in the Herald.
Sorry about that.
While failure is an orphan.
So, who gets stuck with this one? Personally, I favor a special tax on everyone who voted for Bush to cover the cost of this boondoggle. Or better yet, all the millionaires who got huge tax cuts have to pony up and pay for it.
Any takers?
He said that if the events in Iraq aren't a civil war, then he doesn't know what is!
[link to www.timesonline.co.uk]
In July of 2005, he said
Just a couple of days ago, he said [link to seattlepi.nwsource.com]
on talk radio. Apparently more people have now been killed in the Iraq war which Puddinhead started than have ever been killed by the terrorists we were supposed to be fighting. Food for thought, to be sure.
the war wasn't going to last this long so , like w, they were completely unprepared. looking at some of the other editorials it's nice that they finally see what they couldn't see then. if i thought for one minute that we could have freed iraq from saddam, and had democracy spread all over the middle east, and promptly withdrawn, i would have supported it, wmd or not. i didn't think they had wmd, the uninspectors were not finding them, nor did i doubt for one minute it would end up like this, especially given the ineptness of our all but comatose president. it's over. set a deadline and leave.
that God isn't on our side? A German soldier on the eastern front about, 1943 remarked the he was losing faith God was on Germany's side in spite of all Hitler had said. Maybe it's a matter of "strength of faith." Could it be that the Muslims believe more strongly in God than W? They say that "faith moves mountains" but can it win wars? Maybe the evangelicals that put W in office aren't praying hard enough. Something's certainly not working, gone bad wrong. I think I know what the problem is. When Billy Graham stuck his plate under George's nose looking for a "gift to God" he was out of money, spent it all in Iraq no doubt. But Chaney came through with some Haliburton cash. Does God accept stolen money for tickets to heaven? The bishop of Paris said that prostitutes could gift to God as long as they were sorry for their sins, violations of the sixth commandment.
God has always been a broken stick, not reliable, can't be counted on when the chips are down. All the praying possible can't stop a huricane or win a battle. The wonderment is why people and especially the CIC would rely on God. More profound is why anyone would vote for one who makes his use of God and need for God's help his primary tool. Of course it got him elected, votes from people who don't know any better I suppose. Maybe that will change, voting on religious convictions and not common sense.
The source of all that religious conviction, the Bible is now a proved hoax. Some Republicans are already putting distance between themselves and the moral majority, those who get their moral standards from a hoax. You don't suppose they have tuned in to [link to www.hoax-buster.org] that has the proof the Bible is a hoax?
In Bush's speech on Iraq yesterday, he made some pretty perplexing claims.
Bush said, "My most important job is to protect you, is to protect the American people. Therefore, when we see threats, given the lesson of September the 11th, we got to deal with them."
OK. So Job #1 is to "protect the American People". But wait ... wasn't Bush the President ON 9/11? Who was responsible for protecting America on THAT day? We get some insight into that from a later statement.
Bush said, "I understand some don't view that we're in a war against the terrorists. I know that. And therefore, there's a sense that 9/11 might have been an isolated incident. I just don't agree. And here's what I -- here's the basis from which I made decisions. You heard one -- is that 9/11 affected the way I think."
Hmmmm. 9/11 "affected the way Bush thinks". About protecting Americans. Prior to 9/11, he didn't think terrorists were a problem?
What a chilling and damning admission. The tremendous destruction and 3000 dead on 9/11 were a result of Bush's not THINKING CORRECTLY. By his own admission, he was not on the job protecting Americans from terrorists prior to 9/11. It took a huge disaster to "affect his thinking." Americans had to DIE in order to finally wake the president up to the fact that it's his job to PROTECT us.
Of course, those of us who knew Bush, and voted against him (which was MOST Americans), KNEW he would be a bad president who would neglect his primary responsibility. But in this latest press conference, Bush admits that he was asleep at the switch.
He believes that he should be forgiven, because NOW he realizes that 9/11 is not an "isolated incident".
The follow-up question should have noted that this was the SECOND attack on the Trade Towers. "Mr. President, considering your answers here, are we to conclude that, as President, you considered the attack on the Trade Towers in 1993 WAS an isolated incident, and therefore terrorism did not need any of your attention? And considering your "thinking" was "affected" by 9/11, could you tell us whether the attack on the COLE affected your thinking at all, or if you considered it, too, to be an "isolated incident" of terror, and therefore you did not see the need to protect Americans from terrorists UNTIL 9/11?"
What can he say?
To me, Fred Hiatt himself indulged in it, but so did many others on the editorial oped page of the Washington Post, and that lie were the many assertions, always without a shred of evidence, that Democrats, along with all others who were critical of the idea of invasion, and the reality of occupation, were cheering on the insurgency and reviled at every setback, so great was our unhinged animus toward the President - and yes, the style might be different but there's not a dime's worth of difference between Richard Cohn or Charles Krauthammer saying such things and Michelle Malkin's constant malice-filled attacks on any other point of view than her own.
Nor is it true that Democrats have put forth no alternatives to the President's Iraqi stragegy, one of which was the early, preceint observation that there was no stragegy when it came to the post-invasion occupation of Iraq.
Thank-you everyone at Media Matters for assiduously keeping track of all this, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day; those who adorn the pages of the WaPo editorial op/ed pages might not be listening, but rest assured, historians will be coming to this website for decades to come in order to write the history of the media during the regime of Bush.
I believe in the future you are going to have a hard time finding people who will even admit to voting for Bush let alone admit they supported the Iraq invasion.