WaPo's Analysis of War Opinion

Here's a precious gem of MSM editorializing. Funny how I've read it a couple of times and I still don't see this twit mentioning the press' part in distorting the relative opinion on the Afghan/Iraq theaters of war.

First they speak about a poll as indicator of the public perception. We all know how accurate polls are, and how the results vary depending on the politics of the organization asking the questions.

Polls are snapshots that change quickly, as White House aides quickly pointed out. But this one reflects my own anecdotal sense of a shift that I have been hearing about from politicians and activists in the nation's capital and elsewhere over the past six weeks. This survey should be treated by the White House as a serious warning.

"Politicians and activists," that precious group with the inverse proportions of the size of the mouth to the size of the brain. You just have to love that these are the groups being heard from and pointed to for context. Serious warning indeed. It's a true indicator of what the loudest crackpots are thinking and spreading around as facts, though reflective of only opinion.

It is an argument that increasingly centers on the very character of the American involvement in those conflicts, not only on the narrower cost-benefit ratio of U.S. casualties there.

AND

It is not just the surge of violence in both conflicts in the past month that is shaking support for Bush. It is also the growing concern of middle-of-the-road Americans that they cannot trust the information they are being given by the administration -- and particularly by the Pentagon -- about the conduct and progress of these wars.

Now what in this is strange? Americans don't trust what the Pentagon says, because of what?

The failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has forced the administration to emphasize the moral reasons that underlie the case for regime change, a cause I argued for through four successive administrations. But it is American morality -- not Saddam Hussein's demonstrated lack thereof -- that is becoming a defining issue now, however unfair that may seem.

From the disclosures about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib to the apparent falsification of the circumstances of the friendly-fire death of former pro football player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, there has been a lack of serious accountability for lies, mistakes and worse in the military and civilian chains of command.

Much of the questioning of American intentions and actions has been manipulated by enemies and overblown by the gullible. The allegations of Koran abuse are a supreme example of this. The Pentagon is right when it says that by the standards of all previous wars, American troops have been highly scrupulous.

Now note the cases chosen and the fact that they are all cases where the facts released by the Pentagon were no where near as sensational as those put out by the press. The statement regarding accountability is interesting, in that people were held accountable, but that no on in the administrations highest levels were axed over any of these. Now who is playing propaganda games with facts? The last paragraph is just entertaining when you look at the commenter and the MSM as the "gullible" that he is describing. The Vietnam syndrome of the press isn't even mentioned here. But it must be the president's fault since he has been "secretive."

The Bush administration established itself as a highly secretive and defensive group of policymakers even before Sept. 11, 2001, and has used the real security threats the nation faces to broaden and entrench both traits. It now pays the price for that behavior in the form of ebbing public confidence that could impede the war effort.

I suppose you could argue that the administration has been secretive. Though, anything less than complete disclosure of all names and information in all cases is considered secretive by the MSM. I don't think the administration could get a fair hearing from the MSM even if they were complete saints. It just wouldn't be sensational enough for them.

The administration and it's political foes have a great deal to answer for this present sentiment in the country, but the press holds a vast amount of responsibility in this as well. The fact that only the really bad (or even minorly bad) occurrences of the war has been the mainstay of reporting, while any reporting of the good that has been done is completely ignored, should make one stop and think before blabbing rubbish like this Op-ed.