Robert Parry: The Very Annoying Washington Post

[babylonsister]

The Very Annoying Washington Post
by Robert Parry | April 11, 2008


One of the many annoyances about living in George W. Bush’s Washington is to read the commentaries about the Iraq War on the editorial pages of the Washington Post. Possibly never in modern times has a major newspaper been more wrong, more consistently with more arrogance than has the Post on this vital issue.

Beyond getting almost nothing right – from the Post’s certitude over Iraq’s WMD to its reverence for Colin Powell’s U.N. testimony to its excitement over the purple-ink elections to its enthusiasm over whatever latest corner has been turned – the Post also has this obnoxious tendency to mock Americans who don’t share the paper’s wisdom.

One might have thought that editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt and the Graham family would have learned a few lessons in humility from their wretched record as cheerleader for what even many Republicans now acknowledge has been a disastrous war.

As Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher, wrote in a column dated March 11, 2007:

“By now, nearly four years into the Iraq War and related controversies, one is tempted to simply disregard the Washington Post editorial page, and some of its regular columnists, on those matters: They have been so wrong on nearly everything for so long.” {See Mitchell’s new book, So Wrong for So Long.}

But self-criticism is not the Post’s way. Instead the editorial page is back again, mocking those who haven’t submitted to the new conventional wisdom about Bush’s courageous “surge” decision and its brilliant implementation by Gen. David Petraeus.

more...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13977

[Va Lefty]

1. The Post also worships at the mantle of "Free Trade"

routinely mocking those who dare to criticize NAFTA or other trade agreements that have cost tens of thousands of American their jobs. Very sad to think about the kind of paper this was under Kate Graham and what is has devolved into.

[SteveM]

3. Wow! Wish I had that poster before I posted.

[SteveM]

2. On some issues the WAPO is purely agit-prop...

"According to historians Kennett and Anderson... the Washington Post, in what may be a record, once published pro-control editorials on the gun issue for 77 consecutive days." The historians also found "'three quarters of the nation's newspapers, and most of the periodical press' support gun control." -- Kates and Kleck, THE GREAT AMERICAN GUN DEBATE, 1997, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy.

Don't expect good reporting from MSM on three issues:

(1) Foreign policy/military intervention
(2) War on drugs
(3) War on guns

They're all tied together.