Huffington Post: The Washington Post's Missed Lessons (Rebuke of Post's Ridiculous Editorial)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-gizbert/london-calling-the-w_b_43702.html

London Calling: The Washington Post's Missed Lessons

The Washington Post used to be a great American newspaper...

This past weekend, the newspaper published an editorial marking the fourth anniversary of the start of a disastrous war in Iraq. The Post, through its support of the Bush administration, helped make the war happen. The piece was breathtaking, in that the Post still refuses to acknowledge reality. And it was depressing, since the paper's editorial board called the piece Lessons of War, but has apparently learned next to nothing since 2003.

- snip -

"It would almost be comforting if Mr. Bush had 'lied the nation into war,' as is frequently charged." the editorial said. "The best postwar journalism instead suggests that the president and his administration exaggerated, cherry-picked and simplified but fundamentally believed" the intelligence.

I live overseas and from time to time am confronted with American friends who are smart and well informed, but who still live in denial on this particular point; the delusion that President Bush was a victim of bad intelligence. When that happens, I find that the following approach tends to make things clearer for them.

OK - imagine you're watching a movie, and in the immediate aftermath of an historic terror attack (something like 9/11) a president and his defense secretary go to the their chief counter terrorism official (someone like Richard Clark) who has served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and whose expertise and loyalty are beyond question.

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[Captain Hilts]

1. It proved the WP op-ed staff doesn't read their own paper. nt

[Jonathan50]

2. If you go and look at the comments on the WaPost website

You'll find that they're getting royally toasted by their readers.

Probably 95% plus comments are highly negative.