Denying the Truth: Petraeus, Iraq, and Our Pontius Pilate Press

I was in Miami last night for the Univision-hosted Democratic debate. Listening to their responses on Iraq left no doubt that the candidates have gotten the message that, no matter what Gen. Petraeus says during his testimony, the American people -- including the Hispanic community -- are done with this war.

"We need to quit refereeing their civil war and bring our troops home as soon as possible," said Hillary Clinton.

"I believe no political progress [in Iraq] means no funding without a timetable for withdrawal," said John Edwards.

"I'm calling on Republican congressmen and legislators to overturn the president's veto of a timetable," said Barack Obama.

Later, after the debate, Chris Dodd told me he had made it clear to Harry Reid: "As you are trying to get Republican votes for a compromise bill, don't count on my vote on any legislation that doesn't include a clear withdrawal date."

I asked freshman Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey if he felt the same way. "I voted against the war as a Congressman," he told me. "I've been in favor of a definite withdrawal date for a long time. I don't close the door on a bill that, like the Webb amendment, would achieve the same results by making troops unavailable. But it's time for America to stop enabling Iraqis' refusal to come to terms with what they need to do."

So the American people get it, and the Democrats running for president and trying to win their votes get it. Then why do so many in the media still not get it?

In Sunday's New York Times, Michael Gordon, Judy Miller's former partner in the Ahmed Chalabi vaudeville production of "Saddam's Got WMD," served up a fact-challenged piece of administration propaganda in which he asserted, "The most comprehensive and up-to-date military statistics show that American forces have made some headway toward a crucial goal of protecting the Iraqi population."

Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. Nowhere does Gordon point out that the methodology the Pentagon uses to arrive at the comprehensive stats he cites has been thoroughly discredited, as shown by the Washington Post. Instead he asserts:

"Data on car bombs, suicide attacks, civilian casualties and other measures of the bloodshed in Iraq indicate that violence has been on the decline, though the levels generally remain higher than in 2004 and 2005."

Apparently, this means there was some period in 2006 in which attacks, as measured in some particular way, were higher than now. Thanks, Michael Gordon. Your White House thank-you note is no doubt in the mail.

Gordon ends his muddled piece by adopting the pseudo-objective "on the one hand... but on the other" stance favored by so many in his profession: "The figures that have emerged in recent government reports have seemingly provided something for everyone."

I guess we just can't know anything, can we?

Like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility, too many in the Washington press corps want to pretend they are leaving the question of "what is truth" to their readers -- refusing to admit that there is even such a thing as truth. It is particularly troubling that so many in a profession dedicated to the idea that there is a truth to be ferreted out -- and that the public has a right to know it -- remain so resolutely committed to presenting two sides to every story -- even when the facts are solidly on one side.

Progress in Iraq is actually something that can be measured. Last week's report from the Government Accountability Office did such measuring. That's why it was immediately attacked by Republicans -- because it pointed out that Iraq was failing to meet 11 of 18 benchmarks.

But the administration has faith that, because of the way too many in the press operate, all it has to do is sow doubt. The GAO puts out one set of facts, the administration puts out an opposing set of "facts" -- and counts on reporters to refuse to see the difference between facts and "facts."

Case in point: Sunday's AP story about how Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker wouldn't be meeting with "Mr. Bush or their immediate bosses" in order to protect the "independence and the integrity of their testimony." This is a claim that is beneath contempt. It is hard to fathom how a journalistic operation could write something so blatantly untrue when there have been numerous stories about how the Petraeus report has already been discussed and thoroughly vetted by the White House and how Ed Gillespie has set up a war room between the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House to coordinate the Petraeus PR campaign.

The stated purpose of the surge was to provide the stability and security necessary for political progress to be made by the Iraqi government. Progress that, as the GAO report made clear, is unequivocally not happening.

So the White House focuses on small improvements in cherry-picked data. But it surely isn't surprising that in the immediate vicinity of the 30,000 troops involved in the surge, attacks might temporarily decrease. Just as it's not surprising, for instance, that the crime
rate inside the gates of the White House is lower than the rate in NE Washington. The point of the surge was that it would have a political spillover effect. But since that hasn't happened, the White House is once again attempting to move the goalposts, and the Michael Gordons of the press corps are there to help with the heavy lifting.

The problem for the White House, and General Petraeus, and the go-along members of the press, is that the public isn't buying it anymore. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 40 percent of Americans expect General Petraeus to give an accurate picture of Iraq. Fifty-three percent believe he'll give an overly optimistic presentation. And a whopping two-thirds say it doesn't matter what Petraeus says because Bush will hold to his Iraq policy no matter what.

Today, we've been told by the White House and by the press, is The Big Day. Petraeus has come down from the mountaintop with his 10 Commandments and all of humanity now knows the way forward in Iraq. Except, unlike the original, Petraeus' message is not divinely inspired. Indeed, having watched his opening salvo -- which he delivered while barely looking up from his script -- it's not even grounded in reality.

The driving force of the White House's approach to this war has been the belief that saying something is so makes it so. That truly is the first commandment of the Bush administration. But it wasn't true when the war started and it's not true now.

The time has come for the media to stop acting as if there are two sides to the story of what's happening in Iraq when there is only one.

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Comments

[TimeToThink]

Gen. Petraeus is human like all of us. He is the best Gen. one has seen for his thankless job. But, of course 'success' is elusive and temporary and he is stuck in the morass. 'But what the hell," he may think, "I DO know what it would take to secure the place militarily and I've done better than those bozo brass buddies in charge before. So why not take as much credit as I can?'

Get off his back and get on the administration's. Bush et al are to blame for a mess for which there is no hope of good or easy recovery whether we stay for 10 years or leave tomorrow. It's a total mess.

Bush knows he cannot be successful now but will drag it out to present to the next (Democratic) President and Congress to bring them down.

Sure it's all politics on all parts. We all get that. But how many of you finally get it that no course of action within the Republic's power by any leader, any Congress, can mend it well and easily now? Stay = a long drawn out disaster that could blow up any minute. Leave now = an immediate violent disaster of unknown dimensions. Do anything = further distruction of our governmental process and your increasing disgust.

And we are human for allowing this when we have the ultimate power of the vote. We could not only have prevented the war but cast out the likes of Bush et al and all the corporations controlling us etc., etc. Everything. But you talk and then do little. 'We have met the enemy and they are us.'

It ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

[CSE]

Maybe you, as has the MSM, refuse to consider that the reason we cannot leave is that US "interests" would not be preserved if we did. All the investment in "liberating" Iraq will not be returned once we leave. Listen to the average congressman who makes a statement that we may need to "change the current leadership in Iraq" as if the position were a puppet on a string.

Think about that. Iraqis not being beholden to those who "liberated" them. Manned American bases surrounded by a hostile community. A huge, expensive American embassy where Iraqis crap at the gate every morning and diplomats cannot leave.

Part of the "security" issue is making Iraq secure for us to be there.
.

[OCPatriot]

Getting the report from Petraeus is like getting the report from the fox who's guarding the henhouse. Come on, he can, with a straight face, say we're making progress. What else can he say? No, let's throw in the towel and go home? That wasn't his mission; they didn't give him a command to fail; how idiotic can you get, if you expect an objective report from this man? He probably even believes he's objective and telling the truth. So the beat goes on ... so the war and the killing and the stupid spending of money continues.

[cycle3man]

God bless you Arrianna! you speak the truth once again. The US press has rolled over and
carry the presidents line. The press has lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned.

In my town we have been and continue to demonstrate every Thursday evening to bring the soldiers home immediately at a very heavily traffic'd commuter roadway. We have called the newspapers and to date they haven't covered us even once.

[Veleria29]

Very good Post!!!
I just wish that we could get the media to stop repeating the lies being spread by Gen. Peterais and George Bush about the war in Iraq. Just as the people were brainwashed by the medio by repeating the lies and false information over and over again by the Bush administratio to invade Iraq the same is going on today.
The media has a responsibility to tell the people the truth and it is not happening all they are doing is running tapes of what is being said about this war by the general and Bush with no rebuttals about what is really happening in Iraq.

[UglyMoe]

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule, is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."

- Hannah Arendt -

[ProfessorDuh]

Brilliant quote, thanks.

[OCPatriot]

Look, Bush has a history - a history, a long line of past events that always ended the same way - of taking someone who is good and perverting them. Powell is one example. Rice is another. These good people go to work for Bush's administration and get sucked in. Then they either toe the line and lie, lie, lie; or they deceive themselves about the fact that they're lying and think it's the truth; or they get so disgusted they resign; or they try to tell the truth and get fired by Bush. Nothing complicated about that. It's Bush's history.

[ProfessorDuh]

Remember, Arianna, it's wrong to measure progress in Iraq by measuring progress. Only when you measure progress by something other than progress can you see the real progress that's been made there.

[MikeDu]

What's really disheartening is watching how the press took Petraeus's bait like a big fat flounder. The big headline news in the morning - 'Troop Withdrawals to Begin Immediately'! Hardly a mention that these are even smaller than could be described as 'token' withdrawals, and come Christmas 130,000+ troops will REMAIN stuck in Iraq... apparently forever. But the days' headlines read 'Troops withdrawals Begin Immediately'!

[blackmouth]

Arianna, you always hit the nail right on the head, that's why I always love to read your comments. I stopped watching our chicken hearted media long ago. I got it, that they were not going to tell me the truth. Now when I want the truth of what's going on I read the Huffington Post or listen to the Stephanie Miller Show or Air America. Thanks for doing what's right. Telling the truth.

[YellowDogInRedCounty]

Perhaps the greatest reason why we are in the mess we're in...greater than the criminal misconduct of the current administration...greater than the evil of the Republican party and their all-too-willingness to rubber stamp the administration when they had the majority...and greater than the mealy-mouth obsequiousness of the shameful Democrats...is the failure of the press to inform us of what is going on. Instead they have played cheerleader while our country goes down the tubes.

I suppose a lot of the blame goes to corporate ownership of much of the major media, but someone among them has to find the balls to tell us what is really going on. Woodward and Bernstein have turned into corporate lackeys like the worst of them but where are their spiritual heirs? Unfortunately, most of them are on partisan blogs like this which means that only those who already agree are hearing what they have to say.

Ben Franklin must be rolling in his grave.

[justice4juveniles]

I've heard the Knight/Ridder newspapers tell the truth with actual reporters hitting the street. I'm not sure which papers those are though. Not the Chicago Tribune, I know that or the Chicago Sun Times which are the two papers in my area. I'd like to find out though.

[justice4juveniles]

from what I understand, they don't have a DC office.

[HollinHillsBob]

I agree with the point you were making about localized increased troop levels leading to localized progress when stating "the crime rate inside the gates of the White House is lower than the rate in NE Washington"… but wonder just how true that premise really is, present occupants, oh yes, most-assuredly included.

[SadieYates]

THE EMPORER HAS NO CLOTHES!
It's about time we eject this delusional idiot from our White House. we need to get out of Iraq and then the criminals responsible for this lie must be prosecuted.
ALL THIS DEATH AND DESTRUCTION FOR ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING!!! We were better off with Saddam in charge in Iraq.

[DocTwain]

"It is particularly troubling that so many in a profession dedicated to the idea that there is a truth to be ferreted out -- and that the public has a right to know it -- remain so resolutely committed to presenting two sides to every story -- even when the facts are solidly on one side."

Yes--this is not "spin".
(Interpreting facts or events rhetorically.)

This is "blur".
(Reporting lies with truth to neutralize it and obstruct needed action.)

Another page out of the Neo-Orwellian playbook--applying the Overton Window not just to policy positions, but to fact or truth itself.

The same perverted sense of "fairness" that is present in the plutocratic-republican supply-side myth that it is somehow objectively "unfair" to raise taxes on the rich without raising them on the working class, or to lower taxes on the working class without lowering them on the rich.

The insistent cartelist-plutocratic slant of the corporate media continues unabated. It will not go away, even if a strong demand for truthful journalism could be demonstrated. The cartels have matured and their influence is too strong. Their power must be checked through a paradigm shift in Washington, or the slide to plutocracy will continue, hastening the decline in prosperity for the working class.

We need to posit strong values--social-democratic tax and budget and policies, fully publicly funded elections, etc.--to stop the plutocratic pillaging of America.

[oldprostate]

I only disagree with one sentence of your article. " for instance the crime rate inside the White House Gate are lower than NE DC ". In my way of thinking the current white house has the highest crime rate of anyplace on earth.