NY Sun headline falsely claimed Sen. Durbin "concedes surge is working"

[antiimperialist]

One member earlier posted a thread wondering whether Durbin really expressed optimism for the surge, or he was simply misrepresented by Zionist newspaper NY Sun. Well, here is the NY Sun article nicely debunk by Mediamatters.

(snip)

An August 9 New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=60135&v=3153666811">article on recent statements by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) regarding President Bush's troop increase strategy in Iraq appeared under the headline: "A Ranking Senate Democrat Concedes Surge Is Working." The Sun based its article on comments Durbin made during a CNN interview with American Morning co-host John Roberts on http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/08/ltm.02.html">August 8. Yet while Durbin cited military progress in Iraq during the CNN interview, he did not "concede" that the "surge is working" as the Sun article's headline stated. Rather, he specifically said that he sees "two important parts to this story. ... As we are seeing military progress, the political scene is discouraging." When President Bush announced his troop increase strategy in January, he observed, "A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operation."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200708090003?f=h_latest

[eleny]

1. Yesterday, I posted a thread about Durbin's visit to Iraq

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1542533

During his NPR interview yesterday morning he was asked if the surge was working. He said "I don't know if we left in 10 months or 10 years if there would be a remarkable difference....progress is slow going... This is unsustainable for the American people"

I linked to the NPR page with the audio link in my thread. You can make up your own mind. But I didn't think he sounded confident of the surge at all. He said he saw no Iraqi troops fighting with our soldiers and that the Maliki gov't is not a unity gov't.

He also said Baghdad was as hot as a furnace.

[struggle4progress]

2. Potemkin Paper?

posted May 31, 2007 (June 18, 2007 issue)
Eric Alterman

... the Sun says it is selling 13,211 hard copies a day and giving away more than 85,000 ... these numbers are about as reliable as a Bush budget briefing. I have twice received free Sun subscription offers ... Both times I signed up ... I got bupkes ... the Sun's staffers insisted that I was getting the paper and just didn't know it ... I have similar reservations about the paper's purported sales figures ... much of the Sun appears to exist only in its owners' and editors' neoconservative imaginations ... countless conservative propaganda factories are supported in America by literally billions in ideological investment. Their success in swaying gullible reporters in the MSM and elsewhere accounts .. for the widespread misperception that the public has moved rightward in recent decades ... all this can be accomplished -- as the Sun demonstrates -- without the participation of any actual readers.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070618/alterman