Today it's the Washington Post strutting down the runway in its
hair shirt, finally admitting that its drumbeat-for-war coverage of George W. Bush's ill-conceived Excellent Iraq Adventure might not have been accurate.
Another nail in the coffin of American journalism, which only further confirms that Jon Stewart and
The Daily Show are the only places to get real news.
Says Bob Woodward, as he flagellates himself with a cat o'nine tails:
"We did our job but we didn't do enough, and I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder," Woodward said in an interview. "We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for this was shakier" than widely believed. "Those are exactly the kind of statements that should be published on the front page."
And this is half of the duo who brought down Nixon, a man whose sins seem minor by today's standards.
Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks goes on:
"The paper was not front-paging stuff...Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?"
Yeah? Why fight the inevitable? Just lay back and enjoy it, right.
Perhaps the nearly 1000 families who have lost their children, spouses, or siblings in Iraq might question that judgment.
The fact of the matter is that the entire U.S. media recast itself as Pravda in the aftermath of 9/11. And we are paying the price today.
All of them, everyone from the obvious targets like Faux News to the SCLM, represented by WaPo and the
New York Times, have the blood of our soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians on their hands because of their unwillingness to do their job.
Their
mea culpas are just too damn late.