Our malleable past


A certain segment of the media seems to live in the ever present. The past is down the memory hole, and they are unable to cope with the idea that, all things being in flux, the state of things at the moment is by its nature impermanent.

Today' s lesson is about the former tendency, the predilection of certain reporters to shape the past to fit their preconceived notions of what it must have been, in order to make it fit within whatever narrative they are trying to push today. In today's Times, Patrick Healy continues his assault on Hillary Clinton, this time concentrating on her position with regard to the Iraq war, and her refusal to "apologize" (something virtually no one is asking her to do, we would like her to admit she made a mistake) for her vote to license Bush to start the war. I'm not going to go into the merits or demerits of her position. Healy accuses her of trying to avoid the flip-flop charge, and he includes this paragraph in the story:

In the end, she settled on language that was similar to Senator John Kerry’s when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004: that if she had known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraqi weaponry, she would never have voted for the Senate resolution authorizing force. (Emphasis mine)

I read this paragraph shortly after I woke up, but as bleary eyed as I was, I was certain that there was something not quite right here. Off to Google, where I tried this search: "kerry iraq vote know now would different campaign". Here's the first paragraph from the first hit, (Findlaw, Kerry Stands by His Iraq Vote, by Michael C. Dorf, August 18, 2004):

Responding to a challenge from President Bush, last week Senator Kerry stated that even if he had known then what he knows now, he still would have voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002. (Emphasis mine)

Funny, what Kerry said seems to be 180° from what Clinton said. Kerry, in fact, fearing to flip flop, failed to flip flop at all, making himself look like a total idiot and saddling himself with a contradictory Iraq policy for the rest of the campaign. He should have said then what Hillary is saying now. It would have been sufficient then. Bear in mind he would have been lying, as is Hillary, because both of them knew then what they know now: that Bush and his cronies are pathological liars, that they were set on a course toward war and the vote, no matter how it was couched in cautionary language about seeking peace, would be viewed and would be used as a declaration of war. Finally, they knew or should have known that the case for war was weak or non-existent.

But I meander. If I could do this quite basic research, which took me all of twenty seconds, why was it beyond Healy's powers? Is the necessity for an overriding narrative so important to these people that they feel warranted to re-write the past in order to push that narrative? I know the Times must publish daily, and the press to get the story out is probably strong, but don't they make even a minimal attempt to check their facts?
Posted: Sunday - February 18, 2007 at 11:09 AM          

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