The lap dog press 

The lap dog press

With the press's new found enthusiasm for flaying the White House for its lies and ommissions as it beat the drums for war through the fall of 2002 and the winter of 2002/2003 come occasional hints that the press itself failed to do its job during that crucial period, as well. Just as Congress rather blindly and blandly accepted the word of the administration about the threat from Iraq to be true, a dereliction of responsibility which reached its apotheosis with the resolution authorizing the use of force, the press during this time all too often accepted unquestioningly the word of the Bush administration as gospel on this matter. This despite the failure of the administration to establish that it had any credibility and deserved such deference. Although I am grateful that the press has finally sniffed out the story about the missing WMD (now that it is lying stinking in the sun), I would like to see more acknowledgement from the press that they failed this country during a time when their service could have been invaluable, during the time when this country should have been debating in a meaningful way whether this country should be going to war.

Some in the press have acknowledged this failure. Richard Cohen spreads the blame pretty wide, but accepts his share. Bill O'Reilly almost does this, but leaves the impression that the problem wasn't an uncritical press or a devious President, but rather an incompetent CIA. It takes both, Bill. You were a fool to ever believe you should have believed the administration, any administration. That's the lesson you should have learned from this.

What's perhaps most shameful about this is the way much of the mainstream and virtually all of the right-wing press slimed those who did dare to question the administration. We who doubted the word from on high were castigated as America-haters, as wing-nuts, as traitors. There is precious little satisfaction from having been proved right. The only satisfaction I can see that could come fromm this is if the next time our country faces a crisis like this, our press and Congress stand up and do the job they are there to do, to dig for truth and make the administration, whichever administration it is, prove their case. What we got instead was a compliant press praising Colin Powell's "masterful" and "convincing" performance (what a fitting word) before the UN last February. Has a lesson been learned. I hope we never have to find out, but I doubt it.