The Post's editorial dysfunction

The editorialists at the Washington Post should try reading the Washington Post. I know this is asking a lot -- such a concession would risk tailspinning their merely disturbed cognitive dissonance into a wildly despondent mental unblockage -- but some radical measure of intervention is worth the gamble. They simply cannot go on like this, lest they soon find themselves writing for Fox News, a fate worse than journalistic obscurity.

This morning the WP's plucky opinion crew has written yet another logic-defying, reportage-denying editorial on Iraq. It opens orgiastically, and only the full measure of their come-hither ecstasy will do as a quote:

THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite.

PRETTY THRILLING, huh? One can almost see the rockets' red glare, and the visage of George the Lionhearted is decidedly ineradicable.

But wait. A bummer is coming; their editorial erection is heading south. They're unable to cleanly wipe the day's problems from their minds and just lie back and enjoy the moment. It's frustrating, I know, but they smell trouble brewing in George and David's Middle East paradise -- dang it.

Or, as the editorial board put it with more than a trifle understatement: "It is, however, too early to celebrate," since, after all, "the principal objective of the surge was not military, but political." And, alas, that objective has met with unqualified failure.

Oh, shoot. And here we thought we were onto something -- a thought suggested by the very folks who then promptly suggested we forget all that. All their wooing and cooing meant nothing, since the cause of the troubles has been wholly unaltered by the surge's effect.

So what was their opening point? Just foreplay, I guess, which, of course, all real men -- even manly editorialists -- should properly disdain.

And their recommendation for recovery was just as disdainful, since it showed an utter lack of understanding of, say, Thomas Ricks' reporting in their own paper, which they acknowledge with only fleeting cognition.

"The White House and State Department seem to be turning their attention from Iraq at the very moment when they should be mounting a diplomatic offensive to secure concrete steps toward a political settlement," such as holding local elections, say the vastly worried editorialists. "Such negligence would be another fateful mistake in the conduct of this war."

If they had read above, below and between Ricks' lines -- or perhaps even the lines themselves -- they would have realized his reporting allowed for only the bleakest of prognoses.

Quoting Ricks: "The best promise for breaking the deadlock would be holding provincial elections, [U.S. military] officers said -- though they recognize that elections could turn bloody and turbulent, undercutting the fragile stability they now see developing in Iraq....

"So, how to force political change ... without destabilizing the country further? 'I pity the guy who has to reconcile that tension,' said Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, the chief of planning for U.S. military operations in Baghdad."

Hopeless is hopeless, especially when the only possible cure exacerbates the disease.

As for the WP's editorial board's sorrowful dysfunction? They should consult a professional. Like Ricks.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- and thank you!

Comments

[Clemsy]

This is like sacrificing a virgin then taking credit for the sun coming up. Violence in Iraq is down = neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed. Now let's wait for those 2 million internally displaced Iraqis to try to go home.

Al Qaeda is gone = they were never really there in any great numbers.

The question is, are the Shia and Sunnis done killing each other? Probably not. The stage is set for the next level in the game: national power and, everybody's favorite juice, oil.

[Newsguy]

I am so sick of one failure after another in Iraq and then the spin that says everything is going great, except for the things that aren't going great.

We have spent thousands of LIVES and are spending TRILLIONS in treasure, and Iraq is pulling this country down a rathole.

Why is there such a lack of clear vision and common sense? Is it the water in Washington, DC or what? This failed war is far worse than Vietnam and I fear that the repercussions from it will be felt down through at least a couple of generations. Or more.

I know children not yet born will be paying for it.

[Cindy]

Gee, I am sorry to hear it isn't manly to enjoy foreplay...oh, you meant lying to (or playing with?) themselves, well, that's different!