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Some news organizations, including The New York Times, are
currently engaged in self-criticism over the run-up to the Iraq
war. They are asking, as they should, why poorly documented claims
of a dire threat received prominent, uncritical coverage, while
contrary evidence was either ignored or played down.
But it's not just Iraq, and it's not just The Times. Many
journalists seem to be having regrets about the broader context
in which Iraq coverage was embedded: a climate in which the press
wasn't willing to report negative information about George Bush.
People who get their news by skimming the front page, or by watching
TV, must be feeling confused by the sudden change in Mr. Bush's
character. For more than two years after 9/11, he was a straight
shooter, all moral clarity and righteousness.
But now those people hear about a president who won't tell a straight
story about why he took us to war in Iraq or how that war is going,
who can't admit to and learn from mistakes, and who won't hold himself
or anyone else accountable. What happened?
The answer, of course, is that the straight shooter never existed.
He was a fictitious character that the press, for various reasons,
presented as reality.
The truth is that the character flaws that currently have even conservative
pundits fuming have been visible all along. Mr. Bush's problems
with the truth have long been apparent to anyone willing to check
his budget arithmetic. His inability to admit mistakes has also
been obvious for a long time. I first wrote about Mr. Bush's "infallibility
complex" more than two years ago, and I wasn't being original.
So why did the press credit Mr. Bush with virtues that reporters
knew he didn't possess? One answer is misplaced patriotism. After
9/11 much of the press seemed to reach a collective decision that
it was necessary, in the interests of national unity, to suppress
criticism of the commander in chief.
Another answer is the tyranny of evenhandedness. Moderate and liberal
journalists, both reporters and commentators, often bend over backward
to say nice things about conservatives. Not long ago, many commentators
who are now caustic Bush critics seemed desperate to differentiate
themselves from "irrational Bush haters" who were neither
haters nor irrational - and whose critiques look pretty mild in
the light of recent revelations.
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And some journalists just couldn't bring themselves to believe
that the president of the United States was being dishonest about
such grave matters.
Finally, let's not overlook the role of intimidation. After 9/11,
if you were thinking of saying anything negative about the president,
you had to be prepared for an avalanche of hate mail. You had to
expect right-wing pundits and publications to do all they could
to ruin your reputation, and you had to worry about being denied
access to the sort of insider information that is the basis of many
journalistic careers.
The Bush administration, knowing all this, played the press like
a fiddle. But has that era come to an end?
A new Pew survey finds 55 percent of journalists in the national
media believing that the press has not been critical enough of Mr.
Bush, compared with only 8 percent who believe that it has been
too critical. More important, journalists seem to be acting on that
belief.
Amazing things have been happening lately. The usual suspects have
tried to silence reporting about prison abuses by accusing critics
of undermining the troops - but the reports keep coming. The attorney
general has called yet another terror alert - but the press raised
questions about why. (At a White House morning briefing, Terry Moran
of ABC News actually said what many thought during other conveniently
timed alerts: "There is a disturbing possibility that you are
manipulating the American public in order to get a message out.")
It may not last. In July 2002, according to Dana Milbank of The
Washington Post - who has tried, at great risk to his career,
to offer a realistic picture of the Bush presidency - "the
White House press corps showed its teeth" for the first time
since 9/11. It didn't last: the administration beat the drums of
war, and most of the press relapsed into docility.
But this time may be different. And if it is, Mr. Bush - who has
always depended on that docility - may be in even more trouble than
the latest polls suggest.
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