The Bush Media Train

The White House spent months touting the so-called "Petraeus Report" that the commanding general in Iraq would issue in September. The Administration has let everyone believe through both overt exclamations and subtle slight-of-hand that the report will be the full, undiluted viewpoint of the both the general and the US Ambassador to Iraq. Of course, as I've noted here previously -- see August 15th blog post -- the report is actually being written by the White House, not Petraeus. In spite of this well-known and very important piece of information, the mass media continues to falsely refer to this writing as the "Petraeus Report." To do so lends credibility where none is due. Much rides on this report the the response of both Congress and the public to it, and the national media are enabling the White House to continue to lead us down the path of ruin. More to the point, they are failing at their job.

Greg Sargent over at TPM has written a piece that notes many of the instances of poor, misleading reporting on this subject. He also writes:

This gives rise to a key point that's getting a bit lost. The media wouldn't be shouting "Petraeus report" in unison if the White House hadn't spent literally weeks hammering the phrase into the minds of reporters and the public at every conceivable opportunity. And now, even though it's widely known that this was a total sham designed to bolster the report's credibility in advance, reporters and editors just can't seem to get it out of their heads, even though such an exercise certainly wouldn't be all that challenging.

This is a really, really big deal. The White House and war supporters are shoving all their chips onto the written report. Indeed, the credibility the public accords this thing when it comes out could have significant influence over the direction and politics of the war debate this fall, and by extension over the direction of the war itself. And every time the media repeats the Gospel According To Petraeus sham, it's helping the White House obscure the fact that this report will actually be written by the same crew who've been lying to us about the war all along.

22 August 2007