FAIR Media Views
Of their resistance to commenting on the new book from former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan, "which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq," Strobel and Landay explain that "It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start." As for the others, "Bush loyalists have responded in three ways":
  1. Scott, how could you? This conveniently ignores the issue of what Bush did or didn't know and do about intelligence on Iraq, converting the story line into that of wounded leader and treasonous former aide. (That canard was the sole focus of a CBS News radio report Wednesday night).
  2. Invading Iraq was the right thing to do. Okay. When do Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, et al not say that? Dog bites man.
  3. It was an intelligence failure. The CIA gave us bad dope on WMD and, well, they're the experts....
The news media have been, if anything, even more craven than the administration has been in defending its failure to investigate Bush's case for war in Iraq before the war.

See the FAIR Media Advisory: McClellan Confessions Spark Media Denial: Journalists Get Iraq Wrong All Over Again as They Defend Pre-War Reporting (5/30/08)

URL: FAIR Media Views