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I was ready to write a post about how you ignored the charges in McClellan's book like you did the Pentagon supplied network analysts story. So, first I should congratulate you for covering some of what McClellan revealed. That's a step in the right direction, and I underestimated you.
McClellan put the words "liberal media" in quotation marks when he said that if the media had done its job we wouldn't have made the mistake of going to war in Iraq. The quotations show that even the former press secretary of the most right wing White House in my lifetime says the media only gives the GOP side of the story. That's the an incredible event, incredibly telling, and the truth, Putting Tom Brokaw on you newscast with the phony excuse about the press wanting to be patriotic after 9/11 just delayed further the day that the real truth will come out, and all of you will be known for your dishonest betrayal of America and your profession. To sell a tell all book, each new author must reveal something that hasn't been revealed before. As future books come out, and they will, the entire role of the complicit media will be known to all. Bush has seen to it that as many records as possible have been destroyed, but some are bound to survive.
One of the most offensive of the phony regret lines is the one that says, "We should have asked more questions." There was no doubt about what was going on before the war. Nearly every claim Bush made about WMD was debunked before the war started. Aluminum tubes weren't for centrifuges. Supposed satellite photos of WMD sites were reported by the weapons inspectors to be nothing of the kind. The former chief UN weapons inspector said there were no WMD. You didn't ask questions? Bush used his State of the Union speech to give a list of WMDs that he claimed the UN determined Saddam had. I took me a couple of mouse clicks to see that the UN said that those weapons were "unaccounted for", not that Saddam had them. All of us here in the blog world knew the case for war was agitprop. There is no way a big corporate media outlet like NBC didn't know. It wasn't the lack of questions, it was the intentional distortion of the facts to fit the GOP agenda that gave us news coverage that had almost nothing to do with what was really happening.
Brokaw dishonestly assessed that the media's culpability was limited to the Iraq and for only during a short time period. NBC is complicit to this day.
Just a week ago, Richard Engel, in an interview, asked Bush about his remarks stating negotiating with Iran was a futile and appeasement. Bush, visibly angry, instructed Engel that Bush never said such a thing. The White House went into tantrum mode after the interview aired because NBC edited out Bush's denial. Ed Gillespie spread accusations around the right wing media. The White House web site still has their attack on NBC on the top of its web page. NBC kept the full interview on the web in response.
But NBC, other than Olberman, never mentioned that fact that when Bush denied calling negotiating futile and appeasement Bush was lying. Bush said those things exactly. If NBC was doing a real job, they would have broadcast Bush's response from the beginning a pointed out what a lie it was. Film clips should have been shown to prove what Bush actually said about appeasement and futility.
So we know that the White House takes so for granted that its lies won't be pointed out by the media, that the media will give the White House line whenever told to, that they actually had a tantrum because NBC didn't help them lie. And NBC let the White House get away with that. Perhaps that was because, as we've found out from Brian's blog about the tainted analysts and sworn testimony in the Libby case and the recent uproar over the Richard Engel interview that the White House feels completely able and entitled to call up NBC anytime a story doesn't meet their liking.
Brokaw was also wrong when he suggested that the covering up was only over Iraq. In fact, from the start of Hurricane Katrina, Bush kept his vacation schedule and put a deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin, in charge of the relief effort when Hagin wasn't even in Washington or in continuous contact with the appropriate officials handling the disaster. Hagin was with Bush in Texas and overseeing the vacation events. The Senate report on the handling of Katrina said of a conference call the day of Katrina that Bush himself wasn't a part of :
"Joe Hagin....listened to the warnings presented by Brown and others. He asked no questions and only offered the following statement - 'We're here, and anything we can do,obviously, to support you, but it sounds like the planning,as usual, is in good shape, and good luck to the states and just know that we're watching, and we'll do the right thing as soon as we can' "
Hurricane Katrina was NBC's signature cause. I've never seen a word about what really went on with the president on NBC. So its not just about patriotism, like Brokaw pretends. There's nothing patriotic about failing to tell America that the president ditched his obligations to take the helm during one of our nation's greatest national disasters.
So far, NBC's complicity looks like it will continue. Cindy McCain was able to recently get away with saying on NBC that the McCain camp won't use negative attacks, when McCain has gone as low as suggesting Obama is the candidate of Hamas. McCain also got away with criticizing Bush for not being in New Orleans during Katrina, when in fact at the time, Bush was at a birthday celebration with McCain himself.
McClellan is only the start, and as more comes out they'll all rush to blame each other, and the media will be included in that. Its best to get smart now, like McClellan did, and get out in front of the crash and tell the truth now.
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