Lapdogs

by tristero

Salon has a nice, extended excerpt from what looks like a great book, Boehlert’s Lapdogs. This leaped out at me:

In truth, Bush never could have ordered the invasion of Iraq — never could have sold the idea at home — if it weren’t for the help he received from the MSM, and particularly the stamp of approval he received from so-called liberal media institutions such as the Washington Post, which in February of 2003 alone, editorialized in favor of war nine times. (Between September 2002 and February 2003, the paper editorialized twenty-six times in favor of the war.) The Post had plenty of company from the liberal East Coast media cabal, with high-profile columnists and editors — the newfound liberal hawks — at the New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, the New Republic and elsewhere all signing on for a war of preemption. By the time the invasion began, the de facto position among the Beltway chattering class was clearly one that backed Bush and favored war. Years later the New York Times Magazine wrote that most “journalists in Washington found it almost inconceivable, even during the period before a fiercely contested midterm election [in 2002], that the intelligence used to justify the war might simply be invented.” Hollywood peace activists could conceive it, but serious Beltway journalists could not? That’s hard to believe. More likely journalists could conceive it but, understanding the MSM unspoken guidelines — both social and political — were too timid to express it at the time of war. (Emphasis added.)

Let’s assume Boehlert is right, that without the press playing along, Bush couldn’t have gotten away with invading Iraq. That argues for leaving no stone unturned to make sure the press doesn’t roll over for Iran.

(Note to rightwingnuts and other cognitively defective types: I’m NOT suggesting that the press should suppress prowar voices. I’m advocating that the press simply should do its job, which is critically to report a wide spectrum of information and viewpoints about Iran, to analyze what’s reported, and to investigate on their own. Which, to be kind, they did not do in re Iraq.)

However, I’m not entirely sure that Boehlert is, in fact, right. I remember 2002 and early 2003 quite well. This country had gone insane with fear after 9/11. Friends of mine, lifelong liberals, believed every word Bush said and were perfectly happy to believe that Saddam was somehow involved with 9/11. Had the press reported the truth, Bush would have demonized the press and invaded anyway, imo. Had Congress objected, Bush would have ignored them and invaded anyway. He made it quite clear in the spring/summer of 2002 that he believed he had the legal right to invade Iraq without consulting Congress; the resolution in the fall of 2002 was, from Bush’s standpoint, simply redundant. And what the UN does is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, things are different now. The military is publicly dissenting from Iran. The CIA is unlikely to be the fall guy for fixed intelligence given how they were dealt with over Iraq. The Republican Party is interested in winning in the fall elections and they seem to be calculating that opposition to Bush is more likely to play well than signing on without reservations to an Iran bang bang. And Tony Blair isn’t doing very well, either, so the coalition of the willing dodge won’t work this time.

It is extremely important, if you want the US to avert another war, for the feet of American reporters to be held to the fire by the public to report Iran in a truthful But imo, the forceful opposition of the military, Republican candidates, and perhaps the intelligence services to Bush’s jones for war will be just as, if not more, decisive. Note that I truly don’t think Bush – meaning the Bush administration – cares what the country wants; therefore the low poll numbers don’t factor into the decision to initiate a first strike nuclear attack on Iran.* Bush is confident, and probably correctly so, that at least 50.1% of the country will support what he does when the bombs start to fall and that is all that matters.** Of course, Democrats can be safely ignored, as always. And since, to Bush, the press is merely an especially obnoxious species of Democrat, they don’t matter, either.

Remember: he’s The Decider. He decides what’s best. And it is what’s best because he decided it was. The rest of us are, like it or not, along for the ride. That’s the problem with living in an authoritarian state, even one that doesn’t resort – despite Volokh’s fervent desires – to the public torture of its criminals before killing them. You really cannot affect its politics or influence its behavior very much. And if it frightens you to think that the fate of your country, if not the world, rests on the outcome of a desperate power struggle between a goddammed malicious idiot, the Joint Chiefs, the calculations of corrupt Republican politicians and no one else in the world, then… Welcome to the 21st Century, my friends. This ain’t your father’s Missile Crisis.

*Imo, I think it’s beyond serious doubt that if Bush is not stopped, the attack on Iran will be pre-emptive and include nuclear weapons. Both Hersh’s recent article and the response make that clear. Whatever they might be called – surgical, tactical, whatever – they are nuclear bombs, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They may be a bit smaller, they’re still atomic bombs and atomic bombs do rather nasty things to lots of people. Furthermore, given what we know of his personality from his past behavior, it’s safe to say that Bush has no intention of letting anyone – let alone the head of an official Axis of Evil country – be the first person since Truman to order atomic bombs dropped on people.

** Bush’s advisers have almost certainly estimated how low his poll numbers can fall and still ensure that, once the bombs fall, a majority in the US will bounce back to support him. I suspect that number is considerably below the current 1/3 approval rating, so Bush sees no reason to take public opinion into account, at least right now, in his plans for nuclear war. The support of the Congress (for money) and the military leadership (for execution) is more critical and if they don’t play ball, they very well could derail the invasion.

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