Today’s Charlotte Observer Op-Ed page reprints Paul Krugman’s “Public’s ahead of news media on Iraq war — No way out of the quagmire until we face up to how we got in.”
“Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn’t turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won’t be able to get out of that quagmire until we face the reality of how we got in.”
The Observer‘s Web page attributes the piece to Ed Williams at the New York Times. But Krugman wrote it. A bit more from Mr. Krugman, writing from Vienna, Austria:
America’s founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That’s why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion. … More below:
The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.
And then there’s the Downing Street Memo — the minutes of a prime minister’s meeting in July 2002 — in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.
“Bush wanted to remove Saddam,” says the memo, “through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Many in the U.S. news media ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some said it was “old news” that Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002 and that WMD were just an excuse. No, it isn’t. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn’t inform their readers, viewers and listeners. They have never held Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.
Some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. They’re wrong: It’s crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.
Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.
On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: The insurgency is in its “last throes,” says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: Anyone who suggests the U.S. will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.
We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. The best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.
The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message — readier than the news media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes we were misled into war.
In a Gallup poll in early April — before the release of the Downing Street Memo — 50 percent of those polled agreed that the administration “deliberately misled the American public” about Iraq’s WMD. In a new Rasmussen poll, 49 percent said Bush was more responsible for the war than Saddam Hussein, versus 44 percent who blamed Saddam.
Once the media catch up with the public, we’ll be able to start talking seriously about how to get out of Iraq.
Can’t seem to find the quote now, but even Abraham Lincoln (a GOOD Republican, natch) knew that giving the president the singlehanded ability to declare war was wrong. It’s in a letter he wrote someone…
I swear you know, I was living in the USA on 9/11/01 and I understand a lot about what happened that day butwhat I will never understand is how one single event managed to fundamentally change so many Americans’ views on what was valuable, things like privacy, freedom from gov’t intrusion, right to a trial, that torture was bad, that the president shouldn’t declare unending unilateral wars, etc…
Pre 9/11, poor old Jose Padilla, wherever you rest your head tonight old boy, would’ve been granted a lawyer by even the most hatingest American out there. And now… sigh…
Pax
Observed Abraham Lincoln, a “strong” president who faced perhaps America’s greatest crisis:
“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object.”
He rejected the contention that presidents have expansive war-making powers independent of Congress:
“This, our Convention, understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they naturally resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.”
The opposing view, he concluded, “destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.”
Thanks Apian, that’s the quote I was trying to remember.
I have to ask, is your name of Latin origin? As in referring to what we call in English “bees” ?
Pax
Cross-posted at DailyKos
I wrote the Observer to alert them to the attribution error. And I sent Mr. Williams a fast thank-you note.
The War President
The Observer was right about it being the NYT but they got the wrong writer. Still nice they picked it up.
Cheers
I was starting to wonder why I was having flashbacks from the other day when I read this excerpt. I Googled part of the quote and then immediately remembered where I’d read it. While Mr. Williams may have been responsible for the reprinting of Krugman’s piece, he most certainly is not the author here.
And while it’s definitely a good sign that Krugman’s being reprinted in North Carolina, it’s also wise to remember that Charlotte is one of the portions of the state (along with, say, the Research Triangle region) that consistently trends liberal, unlike the areas around the big military bases in the southeast part of the state. I’d bet, though, that Bush isn’t too popular these days around those precincts, either.
It’s so funny. I never saw Krugman’s column or I would have spotted the problem. I hope the Observer corrects it. I’m glad I got to read it, no matter who wrote it 🙂
Even though they have the attribution wrong, good to send plaudits for printing Krugman. Positive reinforcement. Give those friendly rats some cheese, so they’ll go into the parts of the maze we want them to explore.
I swear I’ve been thinking these basic thoughts about Iraq being complete crap since they started pounding the drums of war.
But, it was difficult to speak those views from a barstool without risking a fistfight with the Fox goaded Joads.
I am so happy to see editorials like this. It is like being able to see a ray of light through the asylum bars. I sure as fuck pray to be liberated completely soon, by a fully rationale American public.
of COURSE the Public’s ahead of the media! wonders why that is
Maybe it has something with not reporting what is obvious…
Thank you.
I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Booman Tribune for being the place to go when you want to read the latest and most provocative information/commentary, helpfully listed on the main page instead of having to hunt through diaries for it. I used to use other prominent blogs for this purpose, but you’re offering the best and freshest news.
This was on the front page of the LA Times today. I used to enjoy this newspaper which has gotten increasingly squirrelly about it’s role as cheerleader for the corrupt Bush administration. But… they still have to sell newspapers, after all!
NEWS ANALYSIS
Bush’s Credibility Takes a Direct Hit From Friendly Fire
Cheney’s remark on the Iraqi insurgency’s ‘last throes’ undercuts a calibrated message.
Bush and his aides have delivered a positive, if carefully calibrated, message. The war is not yet won, they acknowledge, but steady progress is being made. “We can expect more tough fighting in the weeks and months ahead,” the president said in his weekly radio address Saturday. “Yet I am confident in the outcome.”
But last month, Vice President Dick Cheney broke from the administration’s “message discipline” and declared that the insurgency was in its “last throes.” The White House has been paying a price ever since.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, complained that the White House was “completely disconnected from reality.” Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), another supporter of the war, charged that Bush had opened not just a credibility gap, but a “credibility chasm.”
Even Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld distanced himself from the vice president’s words. “I didn’t use them, and I might not use them,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. Rumsfeld said the insurgency could conceivably “go on for four, eight, 10, 12, 15 years, whatever…. We don’t know. It is going to be a problem for the people of Iraq.”
And it appears that the people have been finding their own sources for news–including blogs–to get to the truth.
The more they do Bush/Rove’s bidding, the more ridiculous they are going to become; the more they try to act like Faux News, the less credible they become.
Guys, the coffee is about to burn on the stove…
is that it doesn’t take breaks for commercials.
Get the feeling that the paid-for-press has been relegated to the sitcom entertainment level?
Still watched, still talked about perhaps, but it’s still bad acting and lousy scripts…
You watch it only when you haven’t rented a movie…