The Short, Happy Iraq War of Howard Kurtz

As the world marks the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, corporate media's most prominent journalism critic is wondering if Barack Obama's Iraq policy isn't being sufficiently scrutinized. As Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz asked recently on his CNN program (3/15/09): "What about the previous president? I mean, he famously landed on that aircraft carrier, declared 'Mission Accomplished,' and we're still there. Could journalists be falling into the same trap of taking a president's word about Iraq at face value?"

It's a good question to ask — but is Kurtz really the best person to ask it? In the heady days of "post-war" Iraq, Howard Kurtz went out of his way to criticize those journalists who didn't adopt Bush's short-sighted optimism about the "success" of the invasion.

In a column he wrote on April 14, 2003, Kurtz congratulated the press for its coverage of the just-concluded Iraq War. The piece provides a useful guide to the conventional wisdom that guides not just journalism, but also the profession's most powerful internal critics.

Kurtz began, "It's been the best of times and the worst of times for journalists." On the negative side, "The worst because they nearly got submerged in a sea of second-guessing just days into the fighting." After remarking that "unnamed critics, it turns out, are never in short supply," he elaborated by citing some examples of apparently too-pessimistic reporting:

•The Washington Post, March 27: "Despite the rapid advance of Army and Marine forces across Iraq over the past week, some senior U.S. military officers are now convinced that the war is likely to last months and will require considerably more combat power than is now on hand there and in Kuwait, senior defense officials said yesterday."

•Los Angeles Times, March 28: "The stiff resistance shown by Iraqi forces in the last week has forced administration officials to consider the prospect of a longer, costlier war."

•The New York Times, April 1: "Long-simmering tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army commanders have erupted in a series of complaints from officers on the Iraqi battlefield that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it."

So journalists who were the right track — raising questions ("second-guessing") about whether the war would last "months," or noticing tensions between military commanders and Rumsfeld — were the "worst," according to Kurtz. He also stuck up for Dick Cheney, writing:

On the other hand, Newsweek's "Conventional Wisdom Watch" gave Cheney a down arrow: "Tells Meet the Press just before war, 'We will be greeted as liberators.' An arrogant blunder for the ages." Or not.

The arrogant blunder here seems to be all Kurtz's.

Kurtz recalled other highlights from the media's performance:

No anchor-gab was needed when it came to the powerful images produced by this short war. The American POWs cruelly displayed by the Iraqis; the dazed face of the wounded Jessica Lynch during the rescue that freed her; the sheer joy of Baghdad residents hacking away at that Saddam statue. The footage sent the world a message more compelling than a thousand op-ed pieces or a million propaganda leaflets dropped from U.S. planes.

Of course, there was plenty of "anchor-gab" about the Jessica Lynch "rescue" and the Saddam Hussein statue, which were indeed more effective than leaflets dropped from planes--precisely because they were celebrated by the press corps in wildly exaggerated accounts rather than exposed as the propaganda stunts they were (London Times, 4/16/03; LA Times, 6/3/04).

There were other lessons to be learned, according to Kurtz, from the other short war the U.S. had just finished: "Were parts of the media too downbeat about the war's early setbacks? Sure. Trying to assess a war after a week or two is a high-wire act, as journalists learned after the infamous 'quagmire' pieces about Afghanistan." He elaborated:

Now comes the difficult part of the story — forming a government, rebuilding a shattered country, fending off suicide attacks — that lacks the obvious drama of toppling a brutal dictator. (Anyone seen a television report from Kabul lately?) Once the embedded reporters are liberated, it's all too easy to imagine the media drifting off to other obsessions while the future of Iraq is hammered out.

Kurtz was right about one thing, in retrospect: Corporate media did eventually "drift off" from Iraq — hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars later. In the meantime, that forgotten Afghanistan conflict is still underway, with more U.S. troops on the way.

Comments

[VOTER]

Time for Howard to retire and stop his selective journalism.

Kurtz, the WaPo, Media Reporter..­..........­........ LOL!
Howard is as relevant as Bob Novak.

Media Matters is THE MEDIA REPORTER!

[banja]

Howie Kurtz is a loyal Bushie.

[luckyoldson]

Kurtz is, and always has been, a mediocre hack.

[BottomLine2008]

The media did get hysterical about early, brief setbacks in the war, like Jessica Lynch's capture in the first place. Then it overreacted in the other direction.

[Puller58]

Howie feels his bread is buttered by the GOP, hence his fawning over Bush, and his critique of Obama.

[LVLefty]

On the one hand, we expect this sort of thing from Howie Kurtz, the MSM, and his enablers in it. On the other hand, the MSM wonders why newspapers have been dying. Well, it isn't the economy that caused the disease. It is the kind of "reporting" that Kurtz does. Why should the public turn to newspapers when they publish such tripe? If The Washington Post's presiding geniuses want to know why they are in trouble, consider that they publish this clown, along with a stable of columnists whose sole qualifications appear to be that they have been or remain paid Republican propagandists (Will, Krauthammer, Gerson) or are clearly on the edge of senility if they haven't toppled over (Broder), or are determined to be DC Beltway Establishment insiders beloved by their friends who share the same views (Cohen). To see newspapers die is sad. To see why some think they are dying, and how wrong they are, is sadder still.

[silverball]

it['s the forest for the trees thing....k­urtz is a putz and has confirmed it many times....t­he 4th estate, unfortunately, has become stenograph­ers....the­y are afraid of being labeled a part of the "liberal" press...it­'s really more like colbert said....(i­'m paraphrasing here)...tr­uth (facts?) have a liberal bias......­some of the best reporting was done by mcclatchy.­...they, for some reason, have a tendency to ACTUALLY do their jobs rather than try to be BFF's to an administra­tion.....j­ake tapper is another putz.....h­ow do such incompetents get such positions to spew BS....???

[khamak]

If you want a good analysis of the so called liberal media, read "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman. It documents in great detail how there is no such thing, such as conservative media bias against Clinton, Bush's election coverage as compared to Gores and the build up to the Iraq War. It is shocking to see the documented examples of how the entire so called liberal media went after Clinton and Gore with everything they had and then gave Bush a pass on controversies far more damming.

[jazzman]

Funny how so many journalists are now turning on their 'investigative' gene now that Obama is President after turning it off so completely during the Bush years. I suspect they'll have it turned on with full juice until the next Republican is elected President and then the off button will be pushed and they'll march along once again like synchophantic lemmings as the next Republican President makes the rich richer and the rest of the country (the part they never cover) poorer.

[johnie2xs]

Exactly. And at the same time the Rethuglican wags will continue to denounce "The Liberal Press".

I got a Headache. Brother! Can you spare an aspirin?

[agrimsley]

A lot of people may agree with you about this "investigative gene" thay some reporters may have turned on. But you cannot deny your underlying assumption in that statement. Clearly, you're assuming that Obama being a democrat is the only reason why the reporters have become more investigative. There are plenty of reasons that say otherwise for this biased investigative gene that you speak of.

This link will tell you all you need to know.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/06-30-2006/0004390512&EDATE=

Good day sir.

[bikerdude]

It's a good question to ask — but is Kurtz really the best person to ask it?

If not him, who? I'm glad that someone is asking before we go too far. I'm not suggesting Kurtz is even competent, but for Hart to ask whether he is the one is disturbing. We have to encourage msm-ers to ask the hard questions with sufficient follow up to find the true facts.

[jbatch]

So why wasn't Kurtz fired? To be so completely, spectacularly and publicly wrong on such an important issue ought to have consequences. And newspapers wonder why circulation is down.

Well, one reason is that thy allow idiots to report. The NYT hired Kristol -- a man who was wrong on every utterance he made on foreign policy. The WP public editor defends George Will when he outright lies about scientific studies on global warming and continues to do so EVEN AFTER THE STUDY'S AUTHORS TELL HIM HE'S MISUSING THE STUDY, the major papers ignore the Downing Street memos... on and on it goes.

This lack of accountability is ubiquitous in our bread and circus culture. It's at the heart of the public's outrage over the AIG bonuses; and the plan for the bailout in general. Somehow the plundering fools who stole us blind have been transformed into the only people who can save us.

On and on it goes.

[dem 01]

I do not watch him because I know what he is going to talk about - AIPAC agenda
He has some AIR time on CNN - where else !!??
I am saying now and I will say it in the future : CNN is a f... corrupt network, just like FOX !
I remeber the last primary, they aired 'Obam's priest" more than FOX !

[mikesw]

It is no surprise that media coverage is so sloppy: most journalists are incompetent hacks.

How many oversees correspondents can even speak the language of the region? How many journalists writing about scientific issues have taken a college-level science class? Its frankly pathetic.

[buzzygirl]

Howard is a hypocrite. He has led the drumbeat continuously that the media was too easy on the president. This is the same president who has been called elite, arrogant, presumptuous by a bunch of spoiled group of reporters, most of whom got their jobs by having connections in high places or rich parents.

Witness Tucker Carlson. He has failed at every show he's had on TV. Tell me if he was you or me, would he be making serious commentary on anyone's TV?

Yeah.

[checkmoot]

Tucker Carlson ? Is he one of the Fox commentators ?

[wm1066]

Tucker has been making the rounds lately and has been on Howards show.
I wonder how hard it is for CNN to get credible people to shill for the Neocons agenda.

[blood1]

Journalists that got "sucked up" by GWB and his wars have hopefully learned their lesson. I mean actually learned something! I would like the Media to report facts, but I continue to see biased reporting on both sides...so­me more radically knee jerk than others.

I realize they have a boss, but good research and excellent writing should be the goal. That requires more than just "google search" for key words and not reading the information. I know that good reporters are out there, but as their numbers diminish as print news diminishes, I can only hope that the "cream of the crop" rise to the top.

What we are seeing in the bias reporting is that the cream has curdled...­time to throw it out!

[LeeCalif]

Howard the hypocrite strikes again.