Terry Michael, a libertarian Democrat, has an extensive background in dealing with the media. Press spokesman for the Illinois House Democrats from 1973 to 1974, press spokesman for Paul Simons's first five years in the House, later for Congressman Matsui from 1981 to 1983, and then press spokesman for the DNC from 1983 to 1987. He works now as the director of the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism. A critic of the Iraq War, he posted today at his website a critique of the Washington Post's op-ed from yesterday.
Here's an except of his reply, but I encourage you to read it all.
In a continuing lame attempt to both justify its support for George Bush’s elective war and absolve itself of the unpleasant results of that madness, a once-great newspaper burdened its readers Sunday with 1125 words of self-obsessed silliness (which, with apparently unintended irony, they labeled "Lessons of War.")
Post readers who waded hip-deep through those 13 unlucky paragraphs found the following.
An opening splash of tepid water-in-the-face. "But looking back also is essential, particularly for those of us who supported the war."
Followed by a string of disingenuous mea culpas. "We raised such issues in our prewar editorials but with insufficient force," and "Clearly we were insufficiently skeptical of intelligence reports."
Continuing with several self-congratulatory references to the anti-war fact-base supplied by the paper’s reporters. "Read Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s account of the first year of occupation...and weep at the tales of White House operatives sending political hacks to overhaul Baghdad’s stock exchange."
Trudging right along with finger pointing at everyone but the Post’s editorial board. "Having rolled the dice on what everyone [including the Post?] understood to be an enormous gamble, Mr. Bush and his team followed up with breathtaking and infuriating arrogance, ignorance and insouciance," and citing "the catastrophically wrong case that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented to the United Nations."
And finally, with this big finish, the Post editors shared their conflicted wisdom. "It's tempting to say that if it was wrong to go in, it must be wrong to stay in. But how Iraq evolves will fundamentally shape the region and deeply affect U.S. security. Walking away is likely to make a bad situation worse. A patient, sustained U.S. commitment, with gradually diminishing military forces, could still help Iraq to move in the right direction."
"Tempting" to say that "if" it was wrong? "Likely" to make a bad situation worse? "Could still" help Iraq move in the right direction? That’s as bold as The Washington Post editors are willing to be, in their assessment, four years later, of a war to which they loaned the gravitas of the nameplate of the newspaper-of-record in the capital of the free world?