The Liberal Media
by ERIC ALTERMAN
This article appeared in the December 29, 2008 edition of The Nation.
As the Bush era reaches its sordid finale, pundits and politicians are attempting to float any number of specious notions in order to try to put lipstick on this metaphorical pig of a presidency, as well as to constrict President-elect Obama's room for maneuver. The most transparent of these was the laughable claim by New York Times pundit William Kristol that "We've won the [Iraq] war." As Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress's Wonk Room has sagely noted, Kristol's statement makes sense only if one redefines "win" to mean "completely failed to produce any of the positive effects I previously insisted would be forthcoming, but avoided the very worst imaginable outcome." The war, as Peter Galbraith demonstrates in his recent book Unintended Consequences, has increased the terrorist threat to the United States; strengthened our enemy, Iran, further endangering Israel; weakened friendly Arab regimes like Jordan; reduced American prestige everywhere; and failed in its fundamental aim to create a functioning democratic state in Iraq. It has done so, moreover, at a cost, according to the extremely conservative calculations of a recent Brookings Institution report, of roughly 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians, 5 million displaced Iraqi refugees, 4,000 dead American soldiers, more than 30,000 wounded soldiers and more than $500 billion (though Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz more credibly puts the cost at $3 trillion).
The absurdity of Kristol's campaign is self-evident. A more complicated dynamic, however, is at work in the insistent claim we hear from almost everywhere in the MSM that President Obama had better be careful about veering too far leftward because, after all, we live in a "center-right nation."
The most eloquent and influential of these salvos came in the form of a pre-election cover story by Newsweek's editor, Jon Meacham, the author of a number of bestselling and well-respected biographical studies. Unfortunately, in this case, Meacham concocted a historical house of cards.
(More here.)
This article appeared in the December 29, 2008 edition of The Nation.
As the Bush era reaches its sordid finale, pundits and politicians are attempting to float any number of specious notions in order to try to put lipstick on this metaphorical pig of a presidency, as well as to constrict President-elect Obama's room for maneuver. The most transparent of these was the laughable claim by New York Times pundit William Kristol that "We've won the [Iraq] war." As Matt Duss of the Center for American Progress's Wonk Room has sagely noted, Kristol's statement makes sense only if one redefines "win" to mean "completely failed to produce any of the positive effects I previously insisted would be forthcoming, but avoided the very worst imaginable outcome." The war, as Peter Galbraith demonstrates in his recent book Unintended Consequences, has increased the terrorist threat to the United States; strengthened our enemy, Iran, further endangering Israel; weakened friendly Arab regimes like Jordan; reduced American prestige everywhere; and failed in its fundamental aim to create a functioning democratic state in Iraq. It has done so, moreover, at a cost, according to the extremely conservative calculations of a recent Brookings Institution report, of roughly 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians, 5 million displaced Iraqi refugees, 4,000 dead American soldiers, more than 30,000 wounded soldiers and more than $500 billion (though Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz more credibly puts the cost at $3 trillion).
The absurdity of Kristol's campaign is self-evident. A more complicated dynamic, however, is at work in the insistent claim we hear from almost everywhere in the MSM that President Obama had better be careful about veering too far leftward because, after all, we live in a "center-right nation."
The most eloquent and influential of these salvos came in the form of a pre-election cover story by Newsweek's editor, Jon Meacham, the author of a number of bestselling and well-respected biographical studies. Unfortunately, in this case, Meacham concocted a historical house of cards.
(More here.)
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