I watch enough of Fox News to know that they are almost always "on message" when it comes to the Bush talking points. Even in cases like Harriet Miers and the UAE Port deal.
So today, when many of the announcers and experts have been questioning whether we our losing in Iraq, I had to take notice. Even Geraldo made an impassionaed and emotional plea at lunch for the US to pull back to the outskirts.
The president spent this morning being briefed by military experts and somebody at Fox says he appared nervous, and that the best he could do was to urge patience in Iraq.
more....
When normal media outlets have bad news about Iraq, it seems like the status quo, but when Fox News is doing it, you have to wonder. The best I have heard is that some are "cautiously optimistic".
If there's a spin that both Bush and Fox news is trying to push, it's this: That Iraq has centuries of fighting, and that it's up to them to choose their direction. This will allow them to say "We didn't lose, Iraq just rejected freedom". Hence the news caption "Civil war a good thing"
Is it possible that the administration knows that it can't win, and that it's trying to change the direction of it's message?
Here are some of points from watching Fox news...
- One of Fox news reports returned on Wednesday and was extremely grim on the prospects of Iraq. The look on his face was serious and morbid and his outlooks were negative.
- The Fox lunch show stated that they usually try to do a positive story of Iraq every day, but lately, they hadn't been.
- Geraldo made an emotional plea at lunch todayto pull back all US troops from Bagdad, and to supply the troops solely by air (so there would be no convoys). He wasn't merely stating his opinion, he was extrememly emotional, and questioned why we should lose any more soldiers - even mentioning the fact that we've already lost 2300.
- Headlines have been saying things like "Iraq is on the brink" and "Are we losing in Iraq" and "Is Americas work done in Iraq?"
I wish I could be more specific on quotes and names, but I was in my car listening to a lot of these reports.