Is anybody paying attention to the media narrative enveloping the coverage on McClellan's book? I have parachuted into a few cable programs talking about the book and found the echo chamber filled with hollow refrains about the man's questionable loyalty.
In the run up to Iraq, the media failed to get the story right and now they are embarrassed by the Bush Administrations equivalent of Bagdad Bob who is showing the rest of us how the media sideshow called "news" is really nothing more than co-dependency between the fourth estate and the White House.
Keith Olbermann at least gave the book a fair hearing by asking substantive and historical questions. Sadly though, most of the bloggers here missed the point. This is not about salivating over some victory over Darth Vader Inc. Grow up folks - set your hyper-partisan passions down long enough to fully appreciate what is now unfolding.
The coverage over the past two days has largely consisted of flacks from on camp or another piping out the talking points in an effort to move the narrative of media coverage away from the real nuggets in McClellan's book. On the Administration side of the cesspool you have the chorus harmonizing the lyrics of "he's a disgruntled former employee that we no longer recognize." The choir sings about Scott's disloyalty. The media harpies join the chorus with their own refrains about Scott breaking trust with his former boss - and doing it for the money. This is ironic, coming from the most overpaid class of people in America. Worse though is are media critics like David Gregory who take offense at McClellan's comments that the White House press corps was too easy on the Administration. Gregory is way too defensive in his responses. In Gregory's defense however, he did have one or two moments when he pushed back on the answers he got from McClellan. But that misses the point. Pushing back to get face time to advance your career is not the same thing as getting the story right - and that was the point! The media blew the story and that eventually enabled the Bush Administration to push the envelop with one distortion of truth after another. It became so larcenous that the Bush Administration deliberately set out to use the New york Times as a patsy (remember Judith Miller?) to sell the war. That brazen manipulation of the press only happens when he White House is confident that they can get away with it. Confidence of the sort that surely resulted from their assessment that the media would never challenge them, in the traditional role of the fourth estate. Yes, McClellan's book is a condemnation of the massive failure of the media - and they don't appreciate this at all. Gregory, for one, sounded like Hillary Clinton in offering a defense, something to the effect of "The media got it wrong. there was no WMD - but we were like everyone else in believing the intelligence." So much for reporting and getting your own facts.
So the media coverage today repeatedly tells us that this book is about revenge from a disloyal staffer. In fact this book seems to be about one man's journey to understanding that so many people have suffered because of a lie perpetrated by the Bush Presidency. American soldiers have died because of the lie. Thousands more have suffered injuries that may never heal. The families of these valiant men and women will lives lives forever changed by the lie. And the media wants to bathe in self-absorption, thinking McClellan's book is somehow about their world of incest between the press and politicians.
If one thing is clear, it is that McClellan just confirmed that Obama was right from the start - the war should never have been waged. McClellan has destroyed McCain's argument that there is any reason to remain in Iraq. Even Pat Buchannan said that the core principle of the GOP has always been to avoid foreign entanglements. He added that going into Iraq, which he too opposed, is not a conservative ideal. It is the product of neo-conservatives who developed an ideology best described by McClellan as "coercive democracy." Knowing that this idea would not even float in the Republican Party, McClellan presents the story of how it was sold as a lie to the American people. It isn't the first time America has gone to war on the basis of a lie. there was "Remember the Maine" that served to ignite the Spanish American War. And the Tonkin Gulf incident that served to expand the Vietnam War to full scale. What's striking this time is that someone who was once an insider has pulled back the curtain to show us all how the magic act is done. This time we know what happened while the war is still on-going.
So what happens next. That is the debate the nation needs to have. We all know now that Bush lied about WMD to sell the war. We all know that they wanted this war from the outset, in order to coerce the Middle East into democracy. And we all know the price paid for this wrong policy. We all know the lives lost, the generational residue of health care problems (worse than Agent Orange ever was to the previous generation.) we all know the cost in terms of increases in oil and lost opportunities to make America competitive with China and India. So what happens now? Do we allow ourselves to be distracted by the hollow banter of the media? Do we take our collective eyes of the ball and cry for IMPEACHMENT? Or do we have the debate over foreign policy that McCain invites. If McCain is elected, he is the personal embodiment of "coercive democracy." In fact, he may turn out to make Bush look like Mother Teresa.
If anything, McClellan is leading us to ask the question of what we have learned from the failed policies of Bush and Co. He is asking us to get back to the values America is suppose to have in foreign policy. And clearly, he is drawing the lines of comparison between McCain and Bush. those lines of McSameness are connected by two core principles; 1) that war on terrorism wins campaigns, and 2) that government is nothing more than a perpetual campaign.
Listen to what Obama say about this in the coming weeks. He will likely seize the opportunity to draw the distinctions very clearly between himself and McCain. Hopefully he will zero in on the big lie that is the foundation for the past seven years of impeachable governance.
One final request - knock off the silliness in the commentary on McClellan's book. This is very serious business. If you don't get it, then at least refrain from showing off your lack of sensitivity to the seriousness of all this country faces in the wake of the Bush ineptitude.