Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 113
March 20, 2014
One Year Ago: My Piece on Media and Iraq Killed by 'Wash Post'
The piece below was written, in only slightly different from, on assignment for The Washington Post exactly one year ago, but killed by the paper's Outlook section. They later ran a piece by their own Paul Farhi claiming that the media actually "didn't fail" on Iraq. When I wrote about this reaction it drew wide attention across the Web. Catch up with that all here.
For awhile, back in 2003, Iraq meant never having to say you’re sorry, at least for the many war hawks. The spring offensive had produced a victory in less than three weeks, with a relatively low American and Iraqi civilian death toll. Saddam fled and George W. Bush and his team drew overwhelming praise, at least here at home.
But wait. Where were the crowds greeting us as “liberators”? Why were the Iraqis now shooting at each other—and blowing up our soldiers? And where were those WMD, biochem labs, and nuclear materials? Most Americans still backed the invasion, so it still too early for mea culpas—it was more “my sad” than “my bad.”
By 2004 it was clear that Saddam’s WMD would never be found, but with another election season at hand, sorry was still the hardest word. But a few very limited glimmers of accountability began to appear. So let’s begin our catalog of the art of mea culpa and Iraq here. Much more in my new ebook, So Wrong for So Long.
PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY President Bush and many others—including scores of Democrats—who once claimed “slam dunk” evidence on Iraq’s WMD now admitted that this intelligence was more below-average than Mensa. But don’t blame them! They simply had been misled. Judith Miller of The New York Times, perhaps the prime fabulist in the run-up to war, explained that she was only as good as her sources—her sources having names like “Curveball” and “Red Cap Guy.”
But the news media, which for the most part had swallowed whole the WMD claims, was not facing re-election, so some self-criticism, at least of the “mistakes-were-made” variety came easier.
THE MINI-CULPA This phrase was coined by Jack Shafer of Slate after The New York Times published an “editors’ note” in May 2004, admitting it had publishing a few “problematic articles” (it didn’t mention any authors) on Iraqi WMD, but pointing out it was “taken in” like most in the Bush administration.
Unlike the Times, Washington Post editors three months later did not produce their own explanation but allowed chief media reporter Howard Kurtz to write a lengthy critique. Editors and reporters admitted they had often performed poorly but offered one excuse after another. With phrases such as “always easy in hindsight,” “editing difficulties,” “communication problems” and “there is limited space on Page 1.” One top reporter said, “We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power. “ Topping them all, Kurtz reported that Bob Woodward “said it was risky for journalists to write anything that might look silly if weapons were ultimately found in Iraq.”
STONEWALLING As years passed, the carnage in Iraq intensified but accepting blame for this in America was still pretty much AWOL. President Bush and Vice President Cheney said that even if the WMD threat was bogus, they’d still do it again. Reason: They’d deposed a “dictator”—and would you rather have Saddam still in power?
A THOUSAND MEA CULPAS Bob Simon of CBS on doubts about the WMD: “No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas, I don’t think we followed up on this….I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light—if that doesn’t seem ridiculous.”
Now let’s flash forward to this past two weeks, when Iraq (remember Iraq?) re-emerged in the news and opinion sections. But anyone who expected that hair shirts would come into fashion must have been sadly disappointed. The mea culpas would not be maxima. First, those who accepted some blame.
LIMITED HANGOUT STRATEGY David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, wrote well over a thousand words at The Daily Beast describing multiple reasons for promoting the war before very briefly concluding, “Those of us who were involved—in whatever way—bear the responsibility.” While adding: “I could have set myself on fire in protest on the White House lawn and the war would have proceeded without me.”
Jonathan Chait at New York offered regrets for backing the war but defended believing in Saddam’s WMD and recalled that “supporting the war was cool and a sign of seriousness.” And: “The people demanding apologies today will find themselves being asked to supply apologies of their own tomorrow.”
YOUNG AND DUMBER Ezra Klein apologized in a Bloomberg column, at great length, for supporting the war—when he was eighteen, and “young and dumb.” Charles P. Pierce at Esquire replied, “It is encouraging that he no longer believes in fairy tales.”
MEA (AND A LOT OF OTHERS) CULPA Stephen Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, wrote at Foreign Policy: “It never occurred to me or anyone else I was working with, and no one from the intelligence community or anyplace else ever came in and said, ‘What if Saddam is doing all this deception because he actually got rid of the WMD and he doesn’t want the Iranians to know?’ Now, somebody should have asked that question. I should have asked that question. Nobody did.”
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK Thomas Friedman, famous author and columnist, admitted that the US had “paid too high a price” for the 2003 invasion (which he supported, but did not now mention) but, hey, there was still a decent chance that good would come for it—if only those ungrateful Iraqis would stop blowing each other up and form a stable democracy. David Ignatius at The Washington Post offered his regrets but observed that at least “the surge” worked and saved lives (although Rajiv Chandraskaran at the Post called this a “myth”).
Now for those who accepted little or no blame:
WHO, MEA? Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy Pentagon chief, in an interview fiercely denied he was the architect of the disaster. Aferall, “I didn’t meet with him [Bush] very often.” The New York Times in an editorial pointed fingers at the bad actors who helped get us into the war but somehow did not recognize any “me” in “mess.” (The Washington Post got around this by not publishing an editorial on the subject at all.) Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast blamed the war on American “hubris” but did not reveal that he (hubristically?) backed the war himself.
THAT’S MY STORY AND I’M STICKING TO IT Dick Cheney in a new Showtime documentary said he’d do it all again. “I feel very good about it. If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.” Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair concurred. Donald Rumsfeld tweeted (yes) about “liberating” 25 million Iraqis. He failed to recall when he said the war would last at most six months.
Richard Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, said that asking if the war was worth it was “not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation.”
IF WE’D ONLY KNOWN! George Will on ABC: “If in 2003 we’d known what we know now—the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the difficulty of governing and occupying a society in which, once you lop off the regime, you’re going to have a civil war in a sectarian tribal society—the answer I think is obviously no.”
BLAME IT ON THE HANDLERS Kenneth Pollack of Brookings, one of the most influential proponents of the war, now says that he had a different war in mind and the occupation was handled incompetently, asserting, “it didn’t have to be this bad.”
Greg Mitchell’s So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq has just been published in an updated e-book edition.
For awhile, back in 2003, Iraq meant never having to say you’re sorry, at least for the many war hawks. The spring offensive had produced a victory in less than three weeks, with a relatively low American and Iraqi civilian death toll. Saddam fled and George W. Bush and his team drew overwhelming praise, at least here at home.
But wait. Where were the crowds greeting us as “liberators”? Why were the Iraqis now shooting at each other—and blowing up our soldiers? And where were those WMD, biochem labs, and nuclear materials? Most Americans still backed the invasion, so it still too early for mea culpas—it was more “my sad” than “my bad.”
By 2004 it was clear that Saddam’s WMD would never be found, but with another election season at hand, sorry was still the hardest word. But a few very limited glimmers of accountability began to appear. So let’s begin our catalog of the art of mea culpa and Iraq here. Much more in my new ebook, So Wrong for So Long.
PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY President Bush and many others—including scores of Democrats—who once claimed “slam dunk” evidence on Iraq’s WMD now admitted that this intelligence was more below-average than Mensa. But don’t blame them! They simply had been misled. Judith Miller of The New York Times, perhaps the prime fabulist in the run-up to war, explained that she was only as good as her sources—her sources having names like “Curveball” and “Red Cap Guy.”
But the news media, which for the most part had swallowed whole the WMD claims, was not facing re-election, so some self-criticism, at least of the “mistakes-were-made” variety came easier.
THE MINI-CULPA This phrase was coined by Jack Shafer of Slate after The New York Times published an “editors’ note” in May 2004, admitting it had publishing a few “problematic articles” (it didn’t mention any authors) on Iraqi WMD, but pointing out it was “taken in” like most in the Bush administration.
Unlike the Times, Washington Post editors three months later did not produce their own explanation but allowed chief media reporter Howard Kurtz to write a lengthy critique. Editors and reporters admitted they had often performed poorly but offered one excuse after another. With phrases such as “always easy in hindsight,” “editing difficulties,” “communication problems” and “there is limited space on Page 1.” One top reporter said, “We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power. “ Topping them all, Kurtz reported that Bob Woodward “said it was risky for journalists to write anything that might look silly if weapons were ultimately found in Iraq.”
STONEWALLING As years passed, the carnage in Iraq intensified but accepting blame for this in America was still pretty much AWOL. President Bush and Vice President Cheney said that even if the WMD threat was bogus, they’d still do it again. Reason: They’d deposed a “dictator”—and would you rather have Saddam still in power?
A THOUSAND MEA CULPAS Bob Simon of CBS on doubts about the WMD: “No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas, I don’t think we followed up on this….I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light—if that doesn’t seem ridiculous.”
Now let’s flash forward to this past two weeks, when Iraq (remember Iraq?) re-emerged in the news and opinion sections. But anyone who expected that hair shirts would come into fashion must have been sadly disappointed. The mea culpas would not be maxima. First, those who accepted some blame.
LIMITED HANGOUT STRATEGY David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, wrote well over a thousand words at The Daily Beast describing multiple reasons for promoting the war before very briefly concluding, “Those of us who were involved—in whatever way—bear the responsibility.” While adding: “I could have set myself on fire in protest on the White House lawn and the war would have proceeded without me.”
Jonathan Chait at New York offered regrets for backing the war but defended believing in Saddam’s WMD and recalled that “supporting the war was cool and a sign of seriousness.” And: “The people demanding apologies today will find themselves being asked to supply apologies of their own tomorrow.”
YOUNG AND DUMBER Ezra Klein apologized in a Bloomberg column, at great length, for supporting the war—when he was eighteen, and “young and dumb.” Charles P. Pierce at Esquire replied, “It is encouraging that he no longer believes in fairy tales.”MEA (AND A LOT OF OTHERS) CULPA Stephen Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, wrote at Foreign Policy: “It never occurred to me or anyone else I was working with, and no one from the intelligence community or anyplace else ever came in and said, ‘What if Saddam is doing all this deception because he actually got rid of the WMD and he doesn’t want the Iranians to know?’ Now, somebody should have asked that question. I should have asked that question. Nobody did.”
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK Thomas Friedman, famous author and columnist, admitted that the US had “paid too high a price” for the 2003 invasion (which he supported, but did not now mention) but, hey, there was still a decent chance that good would come for it—if only those ungrateful Iraqis would stop blowing each other up and form a stable democracy. David Ignatius at The Washington Post offered his regrets but observed that at least “the surge” worked and saved lives (although Rajiv Chandraskaran at the Post called this a “myth”).
Now for those who accepted little or no blame:
WHO, MEA? Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy Pentagon chief, in an interview fiercely denied he was the architect of the disaster. Aferall, “I didn’t meet with him [Bush] very often.” The New York Times in an editorial pointed fingers at the bad actors who helped get us into the war but somehow did not recognize any “me” in “mess.” (The Washington Post got around this by not publishing an editorial on the subject at all.) Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast blamed the war on American “hubris” but did not reveal that he (hubristically?) backed the war himself.
THAT’S MY STORY AND I’M STICKING TO IT Dick Cheney in a new Showtime documentary said he’d do it all again. “I feel very good about it. If I had to do it over again, I’d do it in a minute.” Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair concurred. Donald Rumsfeld tweeted (yes) about “liberating” 25 million Iraqis. He failed to recall when he said the war would last at most six months.
Richard Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, said that asking if the war was worth it was “not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done in the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation.”
IF WE’D ONLY KNOWN! George Will on ABC: “If in 2003 we’d known what we know now—the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the difficulty of governing and occupying a society in which, once you lop off the regime, you’re going to have a civil war in a sectarian tribal society—the answer I think is obviously no.”
BLAME IT ON THE HANDLERS Kenneth Pollack of Brookings, one of the most influential proponents of the war, now says that he had a different war in mind and the occupation was handled incompetently, asserting, “it didn’t have to be this bad.”
Greg Mitchell’s So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq has just been published in an updated e-book edition.
Missing Questions on Iraq
A little over eleven years ago, President George W. Bush held a widely-watched televised press conference, as his self-imposed deadline for launching an invasion of Iraq neared, stating in his intro, “We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction.” A couple of the questions from the press were sharp, but one asking about his religious strength gave him an opportunity to say, “My faith sustains me because I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength…. But it's a humbling experience to think that people I will never have met have lifted me and my family up in prayer. And for that I'm grateful.”It was the mood of the affair that was most disquieting. Bush smiled and made his usual quips, and many of the reporters played the game and did not press him hard. This was how these press gatherings had gone throughout the run-up to war. When it was over, I felt the press had blown its last best chance to really put his feet to the fire, and along with Ari Berman (then an intern at my magazine, Editor & Publisher, later at The Nation), came up with a few questions we wished reporters had asked. Two weeks later--on this day in 2003--the U.S. indeed did invade Iraq. The following appears in my book, recently published in an updated and expanded e-book edition, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq.
-- Why is the U.S. threatening an optional war if 59% of Americans do not support a U.S. invasion without the approval of the U.N. Security Council, according to a Feb. 24-26 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll?
-- If our allies have the same information on WMD -- and the Iraqi threat is so real -- why do some of our friends refuse to take part in your coalition?
-- You praise the Iraqi people, say we have no quarrel with them, pledge to save them from the dictator and give them democracy. Would you tell us how many of them are likely to die in this war?
-- You say one major reason for taking this action is to protect Americans from terrorism. How do you respond to the warnings of CIA Director George Tenet and others that invading Iraq would in fact likely increase terrorism?
-- Rather than make us wait for a supplemental budget request -- after the war has been launched -- to tell us what it (and its aftermath) will cost, don't you think the American people, who will pay the bill, deserve to know the latest long-term estimates before the fact?
--You say Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is evil enough to use them. If not during an American invasion of his country, then when? How many deaths on our side do you expect?
-- Why, if North Korea has the capability to produce six nuclear warheads by mid-summer, are you letting their very reluctant neighbors take the lead in deterring them while demanding that the U.S. take charge in confronting Saddam?
-- With the economy shaken and deficits climbing, how do you respond to critics who say you're ignoring domestic issues and the long-term economic security of this country by focusing so much of your time and resources on Iraq?
-- Why did the U.S. edit the 12,000 page Iraqi weapons report (as recently revealed) to the U.N. Security Council, removing all names of U.S. companies that sold weapons materials to the Iraqis in the past?
-- You claimed tonight that Iraq has started producing new missiles -- but are these nothing more than less capable versions (fully permitted by the U.N.) of the missiles being destroyed now?
-- How do you respond to reporter Daniel Schorr's statement that the "coalition of the willing" is actually a "coalition of the billing?"
Media Learned Lessons from Blowing Iraq Coverage?
Great piece by Mike Calderone last year at anniversary of Iraq invasion at Huff Post on lessons learned (or not) by media re: Iraq war. Interviews journos, including yours truly, and cites my book as one of two key ones on media malpractice and the war.
March 19, 2014
The Last Soldier to Die for a Mistake
John Kerry famously asked, as a Vietnam vet leader while that war was still going, Who will be the last U.S. soldier to die for that mistake? In regards to the Iraq war, which began 11 years ago tomorrow, we knew the answer back in December 2011, but we've already forgotten. So here he is. David Hickman was a 23-year-old African-American from North Carolina. "The pain is fresh for people who knew Hickman. But the years have not eased the anguish of those who lost loved ones in the war's earliest days, when funerals were broadcast live on local television, before the country became numb to the casualty count."
Of course, the deaths go on, from lingering injuries, brain trauma--and the many suicides.
Greg Mitchell's book "So Wrong For So Long," on media misconduct and the Iraq war, was published this week in an updated edition and for the first time as an e-book, with preface by Bruce Springsteen.
An 11th Anniversary Protest Song
To mark the day eleven years ago when we attacked Iraq: Richard Thompson doing "Dad's Gonna Kill Me." (Some GIs called Baghdad "dad.")
Crude Problem
This will be a "tricky" one to clean up, says the EPA, it what usually tends to be an understatement.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that on Monday, about 10,000 gallons of crude oil from an underground pipeline spilled into a stream and marshy pond in Ohio's Oak Glen Nature Preserve, about 20 miles north of Cincinnati. The leak was discovered not by the company but by a driver who smelled oil and pulled over to find the source. The paper checked federal records for the pipeline's most recent inspection: 2011.
Cleanup crews were preparing to vacuum the wetlands; Reuters reports Sunoco was "not immediately available for comment."
From 2006-13, leaks and spills from the pipeline caused $7.5 million in property damage, and the Enquirer reports this is "at least the third time in the last decade that oil has leaked in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region from this pipe, owned by Sunoco Logistics and operated by Mid-Valley Pipeline Co., both subsidiaries of Sunoco. It is the 40th incident since 2006 along the pipeline, which stretches 1,100 miles from Texas to Michigan, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration."
EPA and local officials are holding a press conference at 10 AM today. -- Barbara Bedway
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that on Monday, about 10,000 gallons of crude oil from an underground pipeline spilled into a stream and marshy pond in Ohio's Oak Glen Nature Preserve, about 20 miles north of Cincinnati. The leak was discovered not by the company but by a driver who smelled oil and pulled over to find the source. The paper checked federal records for the pipeline's most recent inspection: 2011.
Cleanup crews were preparing to vacuum the wetlands; Reuters reports Sunoco was "not immediately available for comment."
From 2006-13, leaks and spills from the pipeline caused $7.5 million in property damage, and the Enquirer reports this is "at least the third time in the last decade that oil has leaked in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region from this pipe, owned by Sunoco Logistics and operated by Mid-Valley Pipeline Co., both subsidiaries of Sunoco. It is the 40th incident since 2006 along the pipeline, which stretches 1,100 miles from Texas to Michigan, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration."
EPA and local officials are holding a press conference at 10 AM today. -- Barbara Bedway
Rust Never Weeps
First deleted scene from "True Detective" has surfaced--when Rust broke up with girlfriend over his refusal to have kids...Never really explained in the series. See Rust doing dishes! And he won't comment on her question: Is he basically a good guy who is a coward or an asshole who is smarter than most?
Colin Cancer: Recalling Key Moment in Selling Iraq War
Beyond a doubt, a key--perhaps the key--moment when the march to war in Iraq (which we launched 11 years ago tomorrow) became almost inevitable 11 years ago was when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his error-strewn argument for the invasion before the United Nations that march, and the media in the U.S., almost as one, declared that he had proven the case. In some ways, Iraq, the U.S., Powell and the media have never recovered. Here's how I covered the media response at the time, drawn from my new book on Bush and media malpractice on the war, So Wrong for So Long.Here's link for full video of the landmark Moyers program on media in 2007.
***
The day after Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, TV commentators and newspaper editorials, and even many liberal pundits, declared their support for the Bush administration's hard-line stance on Iraq. CNN’s Bill Schneider said that “no one” disputed Powell’s findings. Bob Woodward, asked by Larry King on CNN what happens if we go to war and don’t find any WMD, answered: “I think the chance of that happening is about zero. There’s just too much there.”Greg Mitchell’s book So Wrong For So Long , on the media and the Iraq war, plus a preface by Bruce Springsteen, was recently published in an expanded edition for the first time as an e-book.
As recently as a week ago -- following weapons inspector Hans Blix's report to the United Nations and the president's State of the Union address -- more than two-thirds of the nation's editorial pages called for the release of more detailed evidence and increased diplomatic maneuvering. The 80-minute presentation by Powell seems to have silenced most of the critics.
Consider the following day-after editorial endorsements, all from sources not always on the side of the White House. As media writer Mark Jurkowitz put it in the Boston Globe, Powell's speech may not have convinced France of the need to topple Saddam but "it seemed to work wonders on opinion makers and editorial shakers in the media universe."
The San Francisco Chronicle called the speech "impressive in its breadth and eloquence." The Denver Post likened Powell to "Marshal Dillon facing down a gunslinger in Dodge City," adding that he had presented "not just one 'smoking gun' but a battery of them." The Tampa Tribune called Powell's case "overwhelming," while The Oregonian in Portland found it "devastating." To The Hartford Courant it was "masterful."
The San Jose Mercury News asserted that Powell made his case "without resorting to exaggeration, a rhetorical tool he didn't need." The San Antonio Express-News called the speech "irrefutable," adding, "only those ready to believe Iraq and assume that the United States would manufacture false evidence against Saddam would not be persuaded by Powell's case."
And what of the two giants of the East? The Washington Post echoed others who found Powell's evidence irrefutable. An editorial in the paper judged that “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. ... Mr. Powell's evidence, including satellite photographs, audio recordings and reports from detainees and other informants, was overwhelming."
Here’s the Post’s Jim Hoagland: "Colin Powell did more than present the world with a convincing and detailed X-ray of Iraq's secret weapons and terrorism programs yesterday. He also exposed the enduring bad faith of several key members of the U.N. Security Council when it comes to Iraq and its 'web of lies,' in Powell's phrase. ... To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don't believe that. Today, neither should you."
That paper's liberal columnist, Mary McGrory, wrote that Powell "persuaded me, and I was as tough as France to convince." She even likened the Powell report to the day John Dean "unloaded" on Nixon in the Watergate hearings. Another liberal at that paper, Richard Cohen, declared that Powell's testimony "had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.”
George Will suggested that Powell's speech would "change all minds open to evidence."
The New York Times, meanwhile, hailed Powell's "powerful" and "sober, factual case." Like many other papers, the Times' coverage on its news pages — in separate stories by Steven Weisman, Michael Gordon and Adam Clymer — also bent over backward to give Powell the benefit of nearly every doubt. Apparently in thrall to Powell's moderate reputation, no one even mentioned that he was essentially acting as lead prosecutor with every reason to shape, or even create, facts to fit his brief.
Weisman called Powell's evidence "a nearly encyclopedic catalog that reached further than many had expected." He and Clymer both recalled Adlai Stevenson's speech to the U.N. in 1962 exposing Soviet missiles in Cuba. Gordon closed his piece by asserting that "it will be difficult for skeptics to argue that Washington's case against Iraq is based on groundless suspicions and not intelligence information."
While newspapers unanimously praised Powell and criticized Saddam Hussein, they still disagreed over how to act, and when. A once-tiny hawkish faction has grown to include 15 newspapers. The Dallas Morning News reflected the sentiment behind calls for quick force: "The U.S. Secretary of State did everything but perform cornea transplants on the countries that still claim to see no reason for forcibly disarming Iraq."
Those in the more cautious, but still pro-war, camp generally advocate the forceful overthrow of Hussein while contending that broad international support still should be prerequisites for any invasion. "The go-it-alone ultimatum is one the U.S. and the international community would do well to avoid -- and one that Powell's much-needed presentation should help head off," USA Today wrote. Others called for a second U.N. resolution to authorize the use of force.
March 18, 2014
You Don't Say?
New trailer just out for upcoming TV series "Fargo." With everyone from Billy Bob to Adam Goldberg.
When Neil Young Hit Bush, and the Media, On Iraq
The coming 11th anniversary of the start of Iraq war makes me recall one of the unsung singers who (eventually) took a hard-hitting stance against the war. Here's what I posted some time ago--there's much more in my new book on Bush, the media and Iraq--and see clip at bottom.
Neil Young: Rock star as journo? It essentially happened in 2006 when Neil Young, son of a famous Canadian sportswriter, hurriedly wrote and released (only online at first) his ripped-from-the-headlines Living With War CD. He even proposed impeaching the president "for lying" (and "for spying"). In one of the songs in the collection, Young sang repeatedly: "Don't need no more lies."
He emphasized the prohibition against the media showing pictures of coffins with the American dead being returned from Iraq, singing: "Thousands of bodies in the ground/ Brought home in boxes to a trumpet's sound/ No one sees them coming home that way/ Thousands buried in the ground." In another song: "More boxes covered in flags/ but I can't see them on TV."
When Young urged that Americans "Impeach the President," he included audio clips of embarrassing Bush statements ("We'll smoke them out ..."). But a highlight of the collection was the blistering "Shock and Awe," which, along with its antiwar lyrics, included the more philosophical "History is a cruel judge of overconfidence." He also recalled that "back in the days of Mission Accomplished ... the sun was setting on another photo op."
