Many liberal commentators here and on other sites and venues have done an excellent job of pushing back at the resurgence of the Iraq War hawk on the air waves. The opponents of the war were correct, and the recent events in Iraq bear out the obvious: critics of the war who at least read a book on the Middle East know more about the region than the war hawks with their arrogance. However, the mainstream media is once again embracing the Iraq War hawk as some kind of "expert" on Iraq or foreign policy. I think two things are at play here. The first is the mainstream medias obsession with "two side to every story - except when it comes to liberals and their policies." The other is the mainstream media and Iraq War hawks are joined at the hip and can't ever admit to making a mistake, especially if they helped to get people killed.
Most critics of today's journalism have already pointed out that when the mainstream media doesn't want to act like a referee they will pull in a person from both sides of an "issue" to discuss it. The interview never seems to ask probing questions and lets the two sides go at it. This gives the viewer the old "He said, she said" routine. Others rightly call it lazy journalism.
News anchors and the rest will scoff at being called lazy. Their defense is that they are merely providing both sides of the story. However, there are two things wrong with this presentation.
First, one side is definitely NOT getting equal time with its presentation. Any child can count how many times Iraq War hawks have been on the Sunday talk shows or on the evening news, and there are always more Iraq War hawks to opponents. So the programs are tilted to present the Iraq War hawks views with as little diversion as possible from those pesky Iraq War opponents. So if you are a liberal and have an antiwar view, get in the back of the news bus.
This demonstrates that the mainstream media is not acting like a neutral referee on the issue of the Iraq War. In fact, they are busy calling fouls on the liberal opponents. Think of how many of the liberal critics get tougher questions based upon the assumption that we must do SOMETHING in Iraq! Many a liberal opponent of the original Iraq War then has to explain that this is the end result of our invasion of Iraq and the best thing to do is NOTHING.
Somehow, this response is unacceptable to the mainstream media and Iraq War hawks.
The next part of why the Iraq War hawks are finding all the love from the mainstream media is that we are seeing the death throes of a united Iraq, which was predicted by Iraq War opponents with high certainty. With this ugly loss staring them in the face, Iraq War hawks and their sycophants in the media cannot tolerate being told, "This is your fault."
So the mainstream media must get the old band back together to sooth the nerves of all those in Washington that said, "Hell YES! Let's invade Iraq!" It's neoconservative festival! Because nothing hurts worse than being told you are wrong and partly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and a hundred thousand or more Iraqis.
Besides, being wrong sucks. It doesn't pay to get up and admit a mistake or error, especially in the media and government. Look at what happened to Robert McNamara years after the Vietnam War ended. He admitted to mistakes, and he even said that he felt like going out in 1967 to preach against the ongoing war. But instead, he went to the World Bank and kept his mouth shut out of respect of Lyndon Johnson. When he wrote about this in his books late in life, he was pilloried by anti-Vietnam protestors.
So you don't usually win any praise for admitting you were wrong or displaying self-awareness. Frankly, I think the American people would be forgiving of certain mistakes made by politicians when prosecuting a war. But given how many lies Bush and company told to get us into an unnecessary war, they are playing it safe and sticking with their lies.
Which brings me back to the mainstream media. Yes, I believe they helped get many American servicemen and woman killed and wounded, so they have partial responsibility for the mess that Iraq is today. Unfortunately, they cannot let go and admit they were wrong, so they are replaying their scratchy golden oldies for us again with a cynical smile of "we are only cover both sides of the story."
In reality, there are NOT two sides to every story. Edward R. Murrow pointed this out years ago. Sometimes there is only a right side to report. However, the conservative sponsored Iraq War, by mainstream media invention, can never be wrong! Ever. Therefore, there must be two sides to the recent events in Iraq, even if the other side is completely and totally wrong.