The acutely aware may have already seen this Tom Tomorrow cartoon celebrating the 4th anniversary of, "Mission Accomplished" Day.
He attaches the following highly ironic quote from long-blindered/much-syndicated conservative columnist, Cal Thomas:
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"When the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe escaped from the shackles of communism, I wrote that we must not forget the enablers, apologists and other "fellow travelers" who helped sustain communism's grip on a sizable portion of humanity for much of the 20th century. I suggested that a "cultural war crimes tribunal" be convened, at which people from academia, the media, government and the clergy who were wrong in their assessment of communism would be forced to confront their mistakes. While not wishing to deprive anyone of his or her right to be wrong, it wouldn't hurt for these people to be held accountable.
That advice was not taken - but today we are presented with another opportunity in the form of scores of false media prophets who predicted disaster should the U.S. military confront and seek to oust the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. The purpose of a cultural war crimes tribunal would be to remind the public of journalism's many mistakes, as well as the errors of certain politicians and retired generals, and allow it to properly judge their words the next time they feel the urge to prophesy...
All of the printed and voiced prophecies should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent."
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There are at least two remarkable aspects of the pre-war media punditry.
One: The vast majority of the regular pundit have been proven not just wrong, but deliriously wrong. So wrong the proverbial room full of monkeys would have produced a higher success rate than ... the pundits allowed to offer comment on network and cable television. (Forget about talk radio, which at least is unabashed in its unwavering commitment to wrongheadedness.)
As Bill Moyers reminded us last week, the choice of "expert" pre-war punditry was heavily influenced by networks -- and newspapers -- tilting coverage to remain in step with perceived popular opinion, thereby avoiding charges of unpatriotism, which to nervous "objective" editors is a little like being accused of pedophilia, that is to say, an accusation from which you never fully recover.
Two: Virtually all of the worst offenders, the "experts" now proven so completely, ghastly wrong -- the kind wrong that would get a standard beat reporter reassigned to the loading dock -- continue to gas on as though nothing has changed and their expertise hasn't been proven not just faulty but, on many levels, corrupt.
More to the point, no real attempt has been made to rotate in pundits who accurately predicted the catastrophe we see before us today. None of the cast of, for example, "The Nation", contribute any more frequently than they did before the war. And voices who have established their bona-fides since May 1, 2003 -- people like Glen Greenwald, Eric Alterman, Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong -- are largely unknown even to the better-than-average informed because of their absence from the standard punditry chairs on the "Hardballs" and "Scarborough Countries" of the world, much less the Sunday morning DC chat shows and "Nightline."
With audience levels off 30-40% and more for your average Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio act, compared to 5/1/03, and Bush's job approval pretty much resting on the marrow of the country's most reactionary and implacable conservatives, common business sense would tell you that unless you are in the business of just nakedly cooking "facts", like Fox News, time and events have evolved an audience interested in something both new ... and a hell of a lot smarter and more intuitive than the same discredited cast of characters of yore.
As a "Mission Accomplished" Day kicker, here is a little bitter dessert, thanks to Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher.
Well said, Brian.
And yet the erroneocracy betrays not a hint of chagrin. Insead, they all seem to have gulped down spoonful of Milk of Amnesia and continued on their self-satisfied and smug ways. Here's my modest proposal: Journalists covering D.C. should be rotated in and out of there with greater rgularity than the poor bastards cowering in Baghdad's Green Zone. But, unlike the case of the intrepid reporters who've risked their lives to cover the Iraq debacle while ducking fusillades of bullets and armchair critics at home, this would be for the protection of US, the readers, viewers and listeners who've been inculcated with the self-servin cant and mutual backscratching weeping out of the beltway like puss out of an infecetd carbuncle.
Oh, but wait, they'll all mewl, we've cultivated sources and access that fresh scribes won't enjoy. Well, we've all been witness to what you're blinkered pursuit of access has gotten us. I'd trade all the access of the Judy Millers of the inner beltway crowd for some good ol' healthy I.F. Stonesque skepeticism. The NYT pulling out of that embarrassing farce that is the White House Correspondents Group Grope is a token start. Dan Froomkin not long ago claimed on his blog that D.C. journalists are once again reacquainting themselves with the frisson of "calling bullshit," which I would argue is still trumped by the thrill of palling around with the powerful and connected. Molly Ivins should be their ideal, not D.C. courtesan Pam Harriman. The only cure, it seems to this consumer, is a mass purge on a Stalinist scale among the D.C. media elite. In the mean time, I'll keep grazing the internet and not hold my breath.