There was a time when the news media was considered way too liberal and reckless with authority. Not anymore. Now percolating with as many pundits as reporters (so it sometimes seems), what we have now are some pretty chilling reviews from the left about the breathless drum pounding for invading Iraq three years ago.
More than a few are dredging up words from The Washington Post’s editorial writers:
“The evidence he (Secretary of State Colin Powell) presented to the United Nations — some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail — 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,” Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote Feb. 5, 2003, on the eve of the invasion. “Only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise.”
Chris Matthews on April 9, 2003, the man who launched a career on red-faced screaming about Monica Lewinsky that helped drive Clinton to impeachment:
“We’re all neocons now.”
A few weeks later, media watchdog Norman Solomon notes of Matthews:
Matthews was still at it, making categorical declarations: “We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical, who’s not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who’s president. Women like a guy who’s president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It’s simple.”
Well, you get the idea. Try Solomon or Robert Parry for more.
Sometimes looking back clarifies the present and guides us for adjustments in the future.
