"Even the liberal New Republic" rears its ugly head again
I can't express my resentment at the New York
Times for printing the book review I am about to discuss. It is a beautiful day
outside; far too nice to spend my time venting, yet I couldn't help myself after
seeing yet another reference to the "liberal" New
Republic.
The New York Times reviews
Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever
Told, yet another book about the Bush
Administration's mendacity. I'm sure it's well worth reading. Rich is one of the
best columnists around. It gets a good review (how could it not; Rich is a Times
columnist) and is, by and large, a well written review. But one thing rankled.
The reviewer details the litany of lies leading up to the Iraq war and, almost
plaintively asks:
How could
this have happened? How could some of the best, most fact-checked, most
reputable news organizations in the English-speaking world have been so
gullible? How can one explain the temporary paralysis of
skepticism?
Perhaps part of the
answer lies just a few paragraphs up in that very
review:
Yet — and this
is where Rich is particularly acute — most serious papers published the
White House claims on their front pages, and buried any doubts in small news
items at the back. Political
weeklies with a liberal pedigree, like The New
Republic, fell in line with the
neoconservative Weekly Standard, stating that the president would be guilty of
“surrender in the war on international terrorism” should he fail to
make an effort to topple Saddam Hussein. Bob Woodward, the scourge of the Nixon
administration, wrote “Bush at War,” a book that seemed to take
everything his White House sources told him at face value. (Emphasis
added)
Perhaps at least one reason
that the press was so easily fooled has to do with the absolute refusal of those
on the inside to ever look afresh at the world around them. Yes, the New
Republic has a liberal pedigree, in much the same way that George Bush's
pedigree is that of moderate to liberal Republicanism. After all his grandfather
was a moderate Republican.
But all of
that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far
away.
How long has it been since Peretz
bought the New Republic? For just so long, since the mid 70s if I am not
mistaken, the New Republic has, in matters of foreign policy, been distinctly
right wing. How is it that anyone can still refer to the New Republic as an
exemplar of liberalism? Whatever the New Republic's line has been on domestic
issues (and it is not clear it can be characterized as liberal) it has, for at
least a quarter century, been indistinguishable from the neo-conservatives on
matters of Middle East policy. It is perhaps enough to say that the New Republic
thought Joe Lieberman would be the savior of the Republic in 2004. So in the
case of the New Republic, at least, the answer to the reviewers question is
obvious. The New Republic was not skeptical because Bush was doing exactly what
the New Republic wanted him to do. The New Republic didn't care if the case for
war was non-existent. It wanted
war.
There are, no doubt, a lot of
other reasons why people who were skeptical about the basis for the war were
marginalized during the run up to war. But anyone looking for skepticism about a
war on Arabs is looking in the wrong place if they are looking in the New
Republic. The skepticism was out there-it was all over the blogs. The real
question is not why was no one skeptical-plenty were. The real question (and the
reviewer recognizes this) is why did the national media enter into an unholy
conspiracy to leave the skeptics out of the national debate. That still awaits
an exhaustive history, but the answer, I suspect, will have more to do with self
interest than gullibility.
Addendum: I
have searched my computer in vain for a copy of a letter I wrote a couple of
years ago to either the Courant or the Day taking issue with a columnist who
remarked that "even the liberal New Republic" agreed with some right wing claim
or other. I can't find the letter. But I invite my readers to google the phrase
"even the liberal New Republic". In light of the results, how can any sentient
being in 2006 refer to the New Republic as a liberal publication? Doesn't the
delusion of those who still believe this fiction give us at least a hint of why
the official media was so slow to recognize the real nature of the Bush
Administration. If you can't tell a neo-con when he's right in front of you,
loud and proud, how do you recognize a lying and deceitful
president?
Posted: Sunday - September 17, 2006 at 10:38 AM