Carpe Datum

Spinning the Quagmire

James Wolcott watched the corporate media cheerlead the Iraqi elections yesterday so I didn't have to:

Yesterday on one of the Fox financial shows, James Rogers, author of Investment Biker, commodities guru, and neighbor-down-the-block (an utterly irrelevant detail I thought I'd toss in to make this blog sound more "personal"), was asked by host Neil Cavuto whether the elections in Iraq would be successful. Rogers said, "They'll be successful because the media will say they're successful," adding impishly, "Fox News probably already has the results."

Rogers was right. Barring catastrophic violence, the media was prepared to hail the elections as a triumphant day for Democracy. Despite all the talk about the Liberal Media playing spoilsport and wanting the elections to fail (a syndicated cartoon strip--State of the Union, by Carl Moore, the worst scrawler ever to pick up an eyeliner pencil and doodle in the dark, depicted "the liberal media" trying to stomp out the balloting in league with Arab tyrants and terrorists), the coverage yesterday was resolutely upbeat and near-ecstatic today.

Yesterday, CNN had cameras around the U.S. where Iraqi expats were voting...one correspondent mentioned that only 26,000 Iraqi exiles out of nearly a quarter million eligible to vote even bothered to register, a remark completely ignored by the glossy, Desperate Housewives-looking anchor, who chirped something about the "pride" beaming from every face. Dan Rather couldn't have sounded more positive about what was unfolding, talking about the blue ink on the thumbs of voters bearing the indelible sign of freedom, etc., not that such inspirational talk will do him a damn bit of good with his fanged detractors.

Peter Jennings also highlighted the most positive developments taking place, with none of the raised eyebrows or sardonic undertones for which he's always accused. No, despite all the talk of the Liberal Media or the MSM sympathizing with the insurgents and rooting for disaster, the coverage was geared for good news. Robert Fisk, in the Independent UK:

"The media boys and girls will be expected to play along with this. 'Transition of power,' says the hourly logo on CNN's live coverage of the election, though the poll is for a parliament to write a constitution and the men who will form a majority within it will have no power.

"They have no control over their oil, no authority over the streets of Baghdad, let alone the rest of the country, no workable army or loyal police force. Their power is that of the American military and its 150,000 soldiers whom we could see at the main Baghdad intersections yesterday.

"The big television networks have been given a list of five polling stations where they will be 'allowed' to film. Close inspection of the list shows that four of the five are in Shia Muslim areas“ where the polling will probably be high – and one in an upmarket Sunni area where it will be moderate. Every working class Sunni polling station will be out of bounds to the press. I wonder if the television lads will tell us that today when they show voters 'flocking' to the polls."

They did just that.

After all the damn headlines I've seen from online media sources about "Iraqis brave bombs" or the "defiant Iraqi electorate" standing up to the insurg-, uh, terrorists! yeah! terrorists!, I think I'm going to smack around the next ConservaBorg I see who talks about "the good news the media just won't report from Iraq". [Hell, how can you report *any* news when you are hiding out in your hotel room because the streets aren't safe?]

You know, maybe we *have* turned the corner with this landmark. I mean, I doubt it because we've been told about so many wonderful landmarks in the past, but for the sake of our troops and our country, you have to hope for the best.

But at the same time, you have to be realistic. You can't just cover your ears and say "not listening!" like Gollum just because there is some bad news. Unless you are a member of the ConservaBorg, in which case you can't handle it when someone like Ted Kennedy criticizes the war:

The ending of the rule of Saddam Hussein was supposed to lessen violence and bring an irresistible wave of democracy to the Middle East.  It hasn’t.  Saddam Hussein’s capture was supposed to quell the violence.  It didn’t.  The transfer of sovereignty was supposed to be the breakthrough.  It wasn’t.  The military operation in Fallujah was supposed to break the back of the insurgency.  It didn’t.

The 1400 Americans killed in Iraq and the 10,000 American casualties are the equivalent of a full division of our Army – and we only have ten active divisions.

Idiot, right-wing nutballs are trying to equate Kennedy's comments with Trent Lott's pre-segregationist Strom Thurmond remarks. Well, duh. They've been trying to make these false equalities since Safire. Safire worked for Nixon and has always tried to downplay Watergate. He's the one who pushed the whole -gate meme and got the media (and everyone else, including me) to call every scandal something-gate so that Watergate doesn't seem so bad. Sorry, the equivalence just isn't there most of the time.

Anyway, Kos has some good thoughts on the Big Picture in Iraq. Things that were true before the election. Things that are still true today. Things that are almost certainly still going to be true after the election, despite what the cheerleading bobbleheads on TV tell you:

This war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

In the feverish minds of the war apologists, it doesn't matter that no WMDs were found, that torture chambers are still open for business, that this war is now rivaling Saddam's brutality for sheer number of Iraqis killed, that the Army, Marines, and National Guard are all having trouble recruiting, that our equipment is degrading to the point where we're creating a hollow military, that the war is costing us $200 billion and counting, that Israel is not safer as a  result of this war, that nearly 1,600 allied troops and counting have died on this fool's errand, that the US's original choice to lead Iraq -- Chalabi -- was an Iranian spy who told our enemies that we had cracked their communications code, that most of Iraq is not under government control, that terrorists are now using the lawlessness in Iraq to recruit and train a whole new generation of terrorists, that our "Coalition of the Willing" is now a mere shell of its former self, that the world hates the United States, that the Euro is suddenly the hot currency, that Europe and Asia are both creating security organizations excluding the US, and that tens of thousands of our soldiers are coming home physically and mentally maimed.

None of that matters to them.

But they see the war getting out of hand. They've see our chances of victory go from little to nothing. And they've got to blame someone. Anyone. And of course, it can't be Saint George, because he's perfect and can do no wrong. So blame Kennedy. Blame Boxer. Blame France. Blame Canada. Blame anti-war bloggers. Because it is they who have botched up the Iraqi campaign to the point of no hope. If it wasn't for them, our troops would still be basking in a flood of rose petals.

The faith-based lunatics taking up residence in the White House and the Pentagon have ample ideological company in Tennessee law schools and other hidey holes of the wingnut blogosphere.

But at the end of the day, whether they'll ever admit it or not -- we were right, they were wrong. Reality isn't being too kind to their side.

For either side at this point, being right about Iraq will constitute a pretty horrible Pyrrhic victory.

Juan Cole has more to say about the election process in Iraq. The man knows what he is talking about, and he isn't a member of the ConservaBorg, which means (1) you should read what he has to say and (2) you can be sure the Boy King won't read what he has to say.

Posted by Observer at January 31, 2005 07:13 AM