In August 2004, we wrote of a pattern common at too many news organizations, such as The Washington Post: the public acknowledgement that they had not been critical enough of the Bush administration's claims in the months leading up to the Iraq war, accompanied by their continued acceptance and repetition of false Bush claims:

Déjà vu ...

In August 2004, we wrote of a pattern common at too many news organizations, such as The Washington Post: the public acknowledgement that they had not been critical enough of the Bush administration's claims in the months leading up to the Iraq war, accompanied by their continued acceptance and repetition of false Bush claims:

On August 12, for example, the Post's Howard Kurtz wrote: "[S]ome critics say the media, including The Washington Post, failed the country by not reporting more skeptically on President Bush's contentions during the run-up to war. An examination of the paper's coverage, and interviews with more than a dozen of the editors and reporters involved, shows that The Post published a number of pieces challenging the White House, but rarely on the front page. ... The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times."

Kurtz went on to quote Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr.: "[W]e were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale. Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part."

Such mea culpas (as well as criticisms of rivals' coverage) are important, but they obscure something just as important: too many in the media are doing it again.

They fell for the Bush Administration's spin about the war. They didn't challenge the questionable statements about the war. Now they tell us they're sorry, but they're doing it again.

Every day, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their surrogates lie about matters connected to the Iraq war -- and about many other things. And the press -- fresh off a round of self-flagellation for failing to question the Bush camp's claims -- fails to question the Bush camp's claims.

[...]

A plea to our friends in the media: please, stop writing about your past failure to challenge the Bush camp on their lies, and start challenging them on their current lies. We don't want to read another round of apologies in a year.

As Bush himself has said, “There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.”

Now, three years after the beginning of the Iraq war, and two years after The Washington Post and The New York Times publicly acknowledged that they had failed their readers and the nation by uncritically reporting the Bush administration's false spin about Iraq -- and by giving scant attention to those who doubted the administration's claims -- the Post and the Times and the rest of the media have a chance at redemption.

With the administration again beginning to plan for war, this time against Iran, and this time considering the use of nuclear weapons, it's time for reporters and editors to apply the lessons they say the learned from their Iraq coverage: to challenge every Bush administration claim, and to give adequate “play” to evidence that undermines the case for war and to those who speak against it.

There is one simple step that news organizations could take to try to ensure that they do not again simply repeat the dubious claims of war advocates: consider their sources. Were they right or wrong about Iraq? Are they making the same types of claims now that they made prior to the Iraq war? Did those claims turn out to be accurate? Certainly, someone who was wrong about Iraq may be right about Iran -- and vice versa. Those who were wrong about Iraq shouldn't be automatically deemed to have no credibility about future events. But, perversely, it often seems that the “experts” and “authorities” who turned out to be so wrong about Iraq are still taken seriously, while those who were right are still dismissed.

Whose opinions do the media seem to take more seriously on questions of foreign policy and military action: John McCain's or Howard Dean's? The conservatives who beat the drums for a trumped-up war against a nation that didn't attack us, or the progressives who questioned their claims?

... all over again?

Of course, you shouldn't expect media conservatives to have learned any lessons from the past three years. They're up to their old tricks again, denouncing anyone who dares speak out against the administration, as Media Matters for America explained:

Since April 17, supporters of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld have asserted that the numerous retired U.S. generals criticizing Rumsfeld and calling for his resignation may, in fact, be aiding the enemies of the United States. This assertion, made in op-eds in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, in a New York Post editorial, and in a column by Fox News host Cal Thomas, repeated a similar point made by Rumsfeld about the media's coverage of the generals' criticism.

Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley chimed in, warning that retired generals who have criticized Rumsfeld may be “illegally conspiring” against the secretary of defense. By expressing their opinion. As private citizens. No, we aren't making this up.

Syndicated columnist and Fox News host Cal Thomas also joined in, arguing that critics of Rumsfeld “will further embolden America's enemies” and seeming to prefer the approach taken by suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui to that of retired U.S. generals: “Moussaoui isn't retreating or calling for the resignation of Osama bin Laden or any other leader in the terrorist war on America and the West.”

Fox News' Brit Hume, meanwhile, took the generals to task, claiming “the only problem I have with the criticism is that there doesn't seem to be anything new about it. Rumsfeld is not being attacked, as far as I can tell, for the recent conduct of the war in Iraq, the recent policies put in place. ... This all seems to be about the decisions that were made when we -- before we went in about the size of force and all that.” Hume wasn't telling the truth. The retired generals have criticized the “recent conduct of the war in Iraq,” as Media Matters detailed.

Nor is the misinformation limited to Iraq. Conservative media figures are hard at work repeating the same types of arguments they made in favor of that war, this time about Iran.

Wall Street Journal editorial writers Paul A. Gigot and Bret Stephens stressed the “urgency” of the Iranian nuclear threat, just as Journal editorials before the Iraq war warned of the (nonexistent, as it turns out) Iraqi nuclear threat. MSNBC's Monica Crowley went a step further, declaring that Iran may already have nuclear weapons.

McClellan out ...

White House press secretary Scott McClellan's Wednesday “resignation” announcement prompted CNN senior national correspondent John Roberts to praise McClellan as a “truth-teller.” Roberts went on to say that he thought McClellan was the “victim” in one of the most famous examples of McClellan failing to tell the truth: his October 7, 2003 declaration that neither White House senior adviser Karl Rove nor former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were involved in the Valerie Plame leak.

Roberts's claim that McClellan was the “victim” -- that he was not intentionally lying to the nation, but rather that he had been lied to by White House colleagues, causing him to give out false information -- may or may not be true. But even if it is true, that doesn't mean that McClellan is a truth-teller, it just means that he didn't lie. The fact that a senior reporter for one of the nation's most prestigious news organizations equates “might not be lying” with “telling the truth” speaks volumes about the state of the media -- and about how the Bush administration got away with misleading the nation for so long on so many issues.

Roberts's defense of McClellan recalled Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank's October 2003 praise for McClellan, about which we wrote at the time:

Discussing the event on the October 13 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank commented on White House press secretary Scott McClellan's handling of questions about the event:

MILBANK: Scott McClellan, who is a good and decent guy, has to get up there and say, This is not a rehearsed event, even when they've actually released the footage showing that it is a rehearsed event. So when he has to say up is down, and he has to go taking on challenging the motives of the press corps, he's obviously got a problem. I don't know how he could handle this any better, unfortunately.

Milbank calls McClellan a “good and decent guy” -- then, in the very same sentence, says that McClellan lied to Milbank's colleagues and the American people. Then he goes on to indicate that McClellan handled it as well as he could have. When did reporters start taking the position that lying to the American people constitutes handling things as well as possible? Wouldn't telling the truth be a better way to “handle this”? Why is Milbank defending McClellan's “challenging the motives of the press corps” -- Milbank's colleagues -- when he knows McClellan was lying?

... Snow in?

Among those rumored to be possible replacements for McClellan is Fox News host Tony Snow. Snow's possible career change -- or, as blogger Joshua Micah Marshall put it, "interdepartmental transfer" -- prompted Media Matters to look back at his record at Fox in an attempt to assess his qualifications.

Media Matters explained: “From his statement that evolutionary theory is a ”hypothesis" to his defense of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Media Matters for America has documented numerous false and misleading claims advanced by Snow as a Fox News commentator." Among those false claims:

• Snow falsely asserted that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV said his wife, Valerie Plame, “wasn't covert for six years” before she was exposed as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

• Snow peddled the baseless Republican National Committee talking point that 2004 presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had blamed U.S. troops for the explosives looted from the Al Qaqaa military installation following the invasion of Iraq. Snow said, "[T]he Kerry campaign is not criticizing the president here. They're criticizing our troops."

• Snow backed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's attacks on Kerry, falsely claiming, "[T]here has been no documentary contradiction of the Swift Boat stuff."

• Snow falsely defended Bush from probing questions regarding his National Guard service.

The day after Media Matters posted the list of Snow's false claims, he used his radio show to offer a rebuttal. In a strong demonstration of his qualifications to be the primary spokesperson for the Bush administration, Snow responded to criticism about his false claims by repeating those false claims -- and making a new one, as Media Matters explained.

Media Matters launches ad campaign aimed at Wash. Post editorial board -- on Post website

This week, Media Matters began running an ad on The Washington Post's website, asking the question: “Do Washington Post editorial writers read their own newspaper?” The ad directs readers to a special Media Matters page dedicated to claims made by the editorial board -- and The Washington Post news reporting that contradicts those claims.

Visit our web page for more information.

Rock Icons 2, Fox Hosts 0

Once again, a Fox News host has picked a fight with a rock 'n' roll legend -- and has once again fallen flat on his face.

You may remember that in 2004, Bill O'Reilly tried to mock Bruce Springsteen's use of the word “oligarchy.” O'Reilly condescendingly defined the word, suggesting that Springsteen had misused it when he explained his opposition to President Bush in part by saying: “I don't want to watch the country devolve into an oligarchy.” But, true to form, O'Reilly was wrong and Springsteen was right, as we explained.

This week, O'Reilly's Fox News colleague, Neil Cavuto, picked a fight with Canadian rocker Neil Young. Noting that Young's upcoming album features heavy criticism of Bush, Cavuto suggested there was something wrong with a citizen of one country criticizing another: “How would the people of Canada feel if an American artist devoted an entire record to telling the world what a bad place Canada is?” But, as Media Matters explained, Cavuto's attack backfired. Turns out there's an American, also named Neil, who has engaged in his share of Canada-bashing: Cavuto himself.

Quotes of the week

Bill O'Reilly, April 18: the homeless “will not support themselves, who will not do it, because they want to get drunk, or they want to get high, or they want -- they don't want to work, they're too lazy.”

O'Reilly flashback: June 11, 2004: “You gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and lazy. And who's gonna wanna do that? Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period.”

Joe Klein, Time magazine's purportedly liberal columnist: “too often, the default position, especially in the left wing of the Democratic Party, is to not respect the military sufficiently.”