News I bet you didn't know, straight from the MSM

Maybe it was their paranoid urge to fairly balance liberal reality with right-wing talking points. Maybe it was their chummy proximity to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Or perhaps it was something in the water, or, perhaps, it was just plain, poor journalistic judgment.

Whatever its cause, this morning's Washington Post's reporting on the White House-Congressional deadlock over the Iraq war stands as a journalistic showcase of fashioning the news -- not reporting it. Either that, or I've been living in some parallel universe for the last few weeks and missed some rather earthshattering changes occurring in the Post's world.

To what, specifically, do I refer? Get this.

Having opened its war-debate coverage on familiar territory -- it "seems increasingly clear ... that Washington will remain locked in an endless war over Iraq"; "a grand bipartisan resolution to the extended conflict in Iraq that some hoped September would bring appears more elusive than ever"; and congressional "advocates for changing course do not appear to have the capacity to muster veto-proof votes to impose their will on Bush" -- Post reporters Peter Baker and Jonathan Weisman, and presumably their editors, then had this to say:

"So any further changes in war policy before Jan. 20, 2009, seem likely to be up to Bush, who has signaled that he is starting to shift."

What, on the toilet? Farther to the right and deeper in the muck? Surely the Post meant to say that Bush has only proffered the usual headfakes of shifting compromise. Surely the Post didn't mean to say, or imply, that the president has signaled a conciliatory path. And please tell me that, surely, no matter how ineffective and inept and inadequate the Democrats are, surely the Post wasn't portraying them as the party of stubbornness, and the White House as the gracious compromiser by contrast.

But that, alas, is precisely how the coverage came across. Poor Mr. Bush. He's trying his best to appease the bleeding-heart ninnies on Capitol Hill, but they prefer discord and confrontation.

"The White House said the Petraeus drawdown marks the beginning of a 'gradual change in mission,'" you see -- and hell, Bush even "suggested in his [Thursday night] speech that he hopes to bring more troops home next year beyond the troops sent earlier this year for the buildup."

Not a word from the Post on the dejà vu contours of what the White House "said," or about its recidivist claims that next year it's really going to let Charlie Brown kick the football. Instead, for heaven's sake, the Decider-cum-Compromiser is virtually waving the white flag.

"In fact," the Post reported without so much as a dram of heard-this-before objectivity, "although senior officials did not use the term 'exit strategy,' the outlines of one emerged from the various statements and speeches they made last week."

Those murmurings must have been delivered as I was bivouacking in my parallel universe, for what I heard last week was an in-your-face, we-ain't-leaving-no-matter-what permanent occupation strategy.

Had enough? Sorry, the Post isn't through with you yet.

"Bush ... made no commitment to do anything beyond the initial drawdown of forces sent for the buildup," which is like reporting that the sunset of those temporary tax cuts will be a tax increase. But enter those pesky, insatiable Democrats again, for "none of this goes far enough for" them.

Indeed, "White House aides expressed surprise that Democrats would not latch onto the concessions Bush has made. It is the first time the president has agreed to pull back any forces since last year's midterm elections overturned Republican control of Congress."

Pardon me, excuse me, a hand in the air here: Isn't that roughly when Mr. Bush announced the surge -- a force increase?

It was all just too weird. But at least it's a compromising -- if not compromised -- universe in which the Post lives.

Comments

[clarence swinney]

WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE?
Bush Background Check. He could not get a civil service
job.
DRAFT DODGER
CRIMINAL MILITRY DESERTER
CRIMINAL COCAINE SNORTER
CRIMINAL DRUNK(20YEARS)
INSIDER TRADER
ALLEGED ADULTERER(WHERE IS THAT WOMAN? DEAD?)
PATHOLOGICAL WAFFLE HOUSE KING

FOR LAST TWO DO GOOGLE SEARCH
CLRENCE SWINNEY
+ BUSK LIES
+ BUSH WAFFLES

[VL]

I've been arguing Bush's war with a Freeper and reading that website, and I wish the tone of some posts over here were less invective-, capital- and acronym-laden. The similarities between these posts and FR is not becoming.

I recognize the need to vent, but let's make it "a dry heat" and lose the juvenile content.

Or shall I say, yours truly will do same.

[VL]

I mean comments and responses compare to FR, not article content. Regrets if I was unclear.