Destor23 nails it. So much for my follow-up post!

it is true that there were isolated voices counseling against an invasion of Iraq on the grounds that saddam was not a threat, he was not, and that the costs of an invasion were way out of proportion to any actual benefit to American security, it was and is.

however, the Busch administration got their war and the natural inclination amongst the press and the population was let's see how it plays out.

soon it was clear that the isolated voices were entirely correct in their assessment and it has became impossible for the Administration to continue to sell the war on anything other than removing Saddam was a "good thing to do" and that leaving now somehow equals defeat.

In the same vein as the "Very Serious Person" idea, it always appeared to me that, much like elected officials, "pundits" weren't interested in being smeared as anti-American or unpatriotic. The revenue streams now available to these people who can get their mugs on TV far exceeds the salary of a mere print journalist or college professor. Why risk that by calling for troop withdrawals or at least some coherent exit strategy? No need to upset the apple cart...

Similarly, I suspect they have no appetite for the taste of crow in their gullet-the drumbeats for this war were never accompanied by anything that illustrated what a victory would look like for the US. I asked many war supporters from the early stages what victory for the US would look like, meaning what did a "win" in this scenario look like and how would that make things better for the US? To this day I've never learned how a win in this conflict would manifest itself in the US. Seems to me the job of punditry is to play out scenarios and predict outcomes based on a specific knowledge they should have. Instead, we had people, both paid and unpaid, puppeting the Administration talking points without really having to detail what a win would look like.

The Friedman "six month" fraud is a prime example. "Give the boots on the ground six more months to work it out," is an easy thing to say when you don't have to detail all the things that actually need to be worked out. This riff on the suspension of disbelief has been played out on movie screens over the years. After all, Face/Off would have been an awful movie if you really couldn't surgically remove Travolta's face and put it on Cage's head. Oh, wait...

I think the right questions are now being asked. As to an answer, I think that the "tepidness" of recent war coverage might be attributed in part to the fact that stated opposition to the war, and not just to its execution, but to the war itself, would require the sense of responsibility that is concomitant with real political opposition, and that responsibility might be too much to bear for our journalistic institutions. It might also raise the specter of discussing the Iraq war in the context of a long-term imperial policy that could be easily sideswiped and brushed off as crude anti-Americanism, true thought it may be.

Scott Horton at Harper's No Comment also has this up today that is part of a piece that is very relevant to this discussion.

3. Chalabi’s relationship with the media seems to have been charmed from the start. You tie him with Steve Kroft at 60 Minutes, Flora Lewis at the New York Times, Peter Jennings at ABC, David Hirst at the Guardian and a long list of others.

Each seems to have accepted Chalabi as a highly-reliable source. This again raises questions about Chalabi’s background and his ability to sell himself as an objective analyst, when in fact he was a man on a mission. Did any of these reporters ever come to think that they had been had by Chalabi? Did they ever attempt to correct or supplement their Chalabi-based reporting?

There are some reporters who confronted their relationship with Chalabi in a very serious and profound way. And others who simply trudged on. And then there are those who are simply his friends, who say that they believe that Chalabi never did lie to them anyway. They may be right too.

One journalist I describe at length in the book, who certainly believes he was lied to by Chalabi, is David Rose, who met Chalabi after 9/11 and quickly became one of the journalists to spread the INC’s stories. He became a powerful, if naïve, ally. The book describes how Rose, a very sincere and talented journalist, now says he was charmed by Chalabi, manipulated by him, and “used” by him.

Rose believes that the INC researched him to learn more about him, to flatter him and play to his vanity. After a story or two, he became convinced that Chalabi and his associates were incredible sources. He wrote various stories that firmly linked Saddam Hussein to the attacks of 911, to al Qaeda, and to weapons of mass destruction programs.

Rose’ stories had tremendous public relations impact, apparently linking Saddam to immense threats against the West, and seeming to back the call for war.

And after the war started, he had an incredible crisis of conscience once he realized how wrong he was, and tried to investigate his own reporting. I honestly found his story a harrowing tale for a journalist.

One thing that he, and other journalists did not ever realize or report at the time was that all the false information given to them by Chalabi’s INC was basically paid for by the United States State Department, which was unwillingly funding an INC “intelligence” program.

Bushco 'sold' this war to the media and the public. The media who were willing to 'play ball' were praised and treated like prize pigs (viz Judy Miller). The supportive public were treated like sub-prime mortgage buyers; fed full of happy horsesh*t and promised very easy terms...with the devil hiding in the fine print.

Those who were paying attention the first time, and saw through the lies and propaganda were ridiculed, marginalized and ignored.

Nobody who's been made out to be a sucker wants to be reminded of that fact. There are a lot of simple people who wanted a simple solution (smash and grab), and who didn't (and don't) want to be reminded of the complexities of the situation, and especially the 'failure' of the war.

There are basically 3 types of war coverage--the 'embedded' success story, the classic 'war is hell' coverage, and investigative journalism into the machinery behind the war. The first is the only one sanctioned by the military and Bushco, the second has been denigrated by new media videobytes, and the third is working frantically, only to be ignored by the suckers who don't want to be reminded that they were in on this con.

I agree with the larger premise here that there should be more war reportage, however, this appears to be working against the larger system, where 'news' equals 'entertainment,' and trivia is elevated above more complex stories. I'm sure that for many in the 'establishment,' this is a feature, not a bug.