Freak Show

I caught some MSNBC earlier this afternoon, and it was really just pathetic. The topic under discussion was that Harry Reid apparently said the Iraq War was lost. Since Reid's an important legislative leader, this did seem like a good subject for a story. But, of course, instead of using it as an opportunity to bring some knowledgeable people on and discuss whether or not Reid was right about the war, they used it as an opportunity to bring on a "Democratic strategist" and a "Republican strategist" neither of whom seemed like especially prominent strategists, to talk about the political fallout from the statement.

It's not, you know, surprising exactly, but if you go a little while without watching cable news coverage of a political issue it is always a bit shocking to be exposed to just how dumb and uninformative it is. The worst of it is that while I was very unhappy with it, I imagine any serious-minded conservatives out there watching would also have been unhappy. Then the folks in charge probably reach the conclusion that "if liberals and conservatives both complain, we must be doing something right!" Soon enough, they moved on to more Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

4/20/07 3:14PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Cable 'news' is very often like a 24/7 video version of advertising on urinals.

Posted by: jonnybutter on April 20, 2007 03:34 PM

This has been commented on too much already but I will say viewing Stewart and Colbert is truly more informative than any cable "hard" news show.

Posted by: steve duncan on April 20, 2007 03:39 PM

Yes, with the honorable exception of Olbermann.

Posted by: Ben Cronin on April 20, 2007 03:40 PM

by which I mean, yes, cable news is shockingly idiotic, except Olbermann is pretty good, though he does have to play to the genre a bit with all of the Hollywood stuff, but it's pretty clear he couldn't give a damn about that stuff.

Posted by: Ben Cronin on April 20, 2007 03:42 PM

"the Iraq War was lost"
I would rather say "the Iraq War was a waste".
Bush has already spent $340 billion on Iraq War thus far, but who got the profit? People in Iraq? They are shouting loud that “American, get out!” while Bush wants to send 15,000 more troops. That’s why we can’t support Bush and his supporters.
It is clear that the military solution is not working. Why don't they try to bring peace by sending humanitarian aid instead of troops and weapons?
According to The Borgen Project, it only costs $19 billion to end global poverty and hunger. Compare to the amount Bush spent on his “War on Terror", this annual cost is very little.
I hope our next political leader will make a commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals which will end global poverty and starvation. It is really not so hard if we are truly willing to make a change and bring peace to the world not by military solution but by humanitarian aid.

Posted by: DaShamu on April 20, 2007 03:55 PM

I thought comments about the Borgen project can only be made by commenters at wonkette

Posted by: nathaniel on April 20, 2007 04:08 PM

And of course, Reid did not unqualifiedly say that the "war is lost." He said that the war is lost if we follow the Bush course. That seems to be lost in the cable news commentary.

Posted by: mikey on April 20, 2007 04:19 PM

I've never thought that Olbermann was all that informative. He's liberal-minded, and he takes a lot of shots at the Bush administration. But informative? Not particularly. If MSNBC decided on a complete overhaul, and Olbermann was included, I wouldn't be upset in the slightest.

Posted by: strannix on April 20, 2007 04:23 PM

Soon enough, they moved on to more Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Wait, really? That story isn't over yet?

Posted by: Jackmormon on April 20, 2007 04:30 PM

mikey this war is lost. Period. Full stop.

We didn't have enough troops going in. We knew that because some very knowledgeable people like the Army Chief of Staff Shinseki and immediately former Centcom Commander Zinni told us we didn't have enough troops.

Rumsfield simply chose to ignore that and go down the list of Generals until he found one lickspittle enough to give him what he wanted. And even then he sent Tommy Frank's first two plans back as being too force heavy.

The decision to go to war can fairly be blamed on Bush/Cheney. Its execution was quite literally criminal. Rumsfield deliberately sent US troops to fight and die in insufficient numbers and faulty equipment. To validate his vision of a reshaped military.

The pure fact is that we didn't have enough active troops to do this right, we don't have enough troops to do it right today, even if by magic we were able to do a do-over, and absent a massive draft never will have enough troops.

From the very beginning this was the result of magical thinking, that you can just will reality into existence. Millions of Americans who maybe just weren't paying attention fell into full out enablement mode.

We lost. Yeah that sucks. And we don't need to get into the question of who got what right when, it doesn't matter that you got to the party late. But stop enabling these sociopaths by staying in denial.

Hope is STILL not a plan. General Zinni had a plan. He had a war plan that called for closer to 400,000 troops. It doesn't matter if Saddam was a madman, it doesn't matter that Saddam killed his people, I knew that, General Zinni certainly knew that, that doesn't mean you invade with a force maybe 50% or less of what it would have taken to ensure victory.

We lost this war the day we rolled over the border. It really was a waste, every bit of it from the very first minute, and that fact is going to be a bitter pill for anyone who ever supported this war. But you are going to have to take the medicine sometime.

Don't confuse realism with defeatism and blind resolve with patriotism.

Posted by: Bruce Webb on April 20, 2007 04:45 PM

You're missing mikey's point. I'm not even sure you're disagreeing with him.

Reid said the war is lost militarily, full stop. But we can still salvage something from the situation if we refocus on a diplomatic and economic strategy. He didn't say we can still win if we give the troops different instructions.

Posted by: Steve on April 20, 2007 05:11 PM

This Anna Nicole Smith necrobsession has gotten way out of hand. She's dead already!

Britney on the other hand is very much alive...

Posted by: Monty on April 20, 2007 05:19 PM

I'm still amazed people watch the television news to be informed. It really does suck. "America's New War"? Sounds like "Jenny's New Baby!" Oooh, a war! Aren't those soldiers with no arms cute! Ugh!

Posted by: SFG on April 20, 2007 06:43 PM

FYI,
My understanding is that Bill Moyers is about to smack the living shit out of the mainstream news figures who have been
posing a journalists for the past few years. See
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003574260

A short excerpt:
-----------
"NEW YORK (Commentary) The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again -- yet Moyers points out, "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses."
-----

Posted by: Don Williams on April 20, 2007 07:17 PM

The cable news networks are not in it for the purpose of informing the public; they're in it for the purpose of making money by attracting the largest possible audience. The way they attract the largest possible audience is not by informing but by generating conflict by putting on commentators representing the partisan interest of the two major parties.

Posted by: SLC on April 20, 2007 07:48 PM

As we inch toward 1984, the only element lacking is 'the news' is that it be totally centrally controlled, even to the point where yesteday's, last week's, and last year's history can be rewritten to reflect today's 'line'. The Foxs, CNNs, and MSNBCs (and the broadcast nets too) have already dumbed things down now to the point where no one really needs them to understand or misunderstand events. And their small audiences reflect their actual value. Irrelevence leads to insignificance.

A really interesting question is whether a democratic republic can survive without vigorous opposing media and unfettered discourse. I think the nation's founders would answer by saying 'no'.

How different are we really today (in terms of media impact on citizen beliefs and involvement in the country's policies) from the situation in national socialist Germany, the communist Soviet Union, or Mao-era communist China?

Is it really important that the media characterize our position in Iraq as winning, losing, about to lose, about to win, etc? Since the reality is nearly invisible, and we don't actually try to see it anyway, all the words are just words that make no impact more on what's going to happen next, than they did on what happened in the near or far past.

The corporatists turned news into a business and beat the goose for more money-eggs, and the goose has now turned sterile. When a hen is old and sterile, it is time for the stew pot.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR on April 20, 2007 10:15 PM

You hardly need much in the way of knowledge to discern that reid's statement was a nonsense. He cited a single attack co-ordinated by 4 al-qaeda operatives as evidence that the surge, which isnt even due to be fully implimented for months, has failed. It's complete fucking bullshit and it is transparent that reid doesnt know nor give a fuck about the situtation in iraq. His every public pronouncment is informed by his sense of political self-interest and nothing more.

Posted by: pimp hand strikes! on April 21, 2007 04:21 AM

I do appreciate the reminders that I'm still not missing anything by ignoring the cable news networks. I was utterly repulsed by their emphasis on celebrity years ago, and I see from this post that I still would be today. Even the story Matthew cites can be seen as another example of trying to convert a hard news story into a celebrity one.

These networks deserve all the mockery and scorn they receive.

Posted by: Ferruge on April 21, 2007 09:32 AM

My paranoid self wonders if there isn't some office in the executive branch that coordinates, on the senior executive level, what is seen on CNN, the netwoorks, the wire services, and a couple of the major newspapers. Because of media consolidation, we are talking about only a half dozen organizations, so this wouldn't be too difficult to accomplish if it wasn't done in a heavy handed manner.

I don't think the bad news you see on TV and in some newspaper articles is as driven by "ratings" as much as people thnk. First, more people have not started watching the news as it has gotten schlokier, and you would think some marketing genius would notice that. Second, I've seen some of the old Soviet TV news broadcasts from the 80s, and the look and feel is just too similar to what we are getting in the US now.

Posted by: Ed on April 21, 2007 11:19 AM

'But we can still salvage something from the situation if we refocus on a diplomatic and economic strategy"

Sorry, that is just more magical thinking. You can't have an economic strategy without a security strategy and there is no viable security strategy that has American participation.

Early on Cheney was asked what we would do if the end result of a democratic outcome was a Shi'ia fundamentalist regime friendly to Iran. His answer "That won't happen." Which allows one to draw one of two conclusions, either he intended to stay in Iraq forever pulling the strings on a puppet government or that he was flat out delusional. The evidence since suggests both.

There has been little to no doubt from day one, just due to the demographics, that a popularly elected government would be dominated by the majority Shi'ia most of whom owe primary allegiance to an Iranian born Ayatollah al-Sistani and secondarily either to the Iranian trained and equiped Badr Brigade or the anti-American Sadrist Mahdi Army. In other words an Iranian friendly fundamentalist Shi'ia regime.

There is a tremendous conceit going around that seems to believe that the United States is somehow the right person to put the situation back together on the basis of 'We broke it we bought it.' Sorry the Pottery Barn metaphor is just that, a metaphor, and in this case not particularly apt. A better metaphor would be the Bull in the China Shop. What do you do in the unlikely event a bull gets loose in dishware? You don't hand him glue, you get him out of the store with as little additional damage as possible.

There is no particular objective evidence that on whole the American military has been a net security asset to Iraq, every month that has passed has put that country this much closer to all out sectarian civil war. Those people who were making these same sorts of arguments back in 2004, that us pulling out would just result in bloodbath, need to show me that the subsequent bloodbath would be worse than what we have today.

We need to put down our White Man's Burden and back out of this, maybe while writing checks furiously on the way out, but in any event out.

We went in too light and hence with force protection rules and search tactics which discounted Iraqi non-combatant lives to zero and now have created a country where majorities hate us and want us out. At this point we are staying on mainly to save face for warmongers and former supporters of this war who don't want to face up to the fact that this Mission Impossible wasn't a damn movie.

Posted by: Bruce Webb on April 21, 2007 11:34 AM

slc, of course, hits it right on the nose: if you're going to treat news as a profit center, you're going to end up with the dreck we feature on cable.

and i can't help but wonder: who karmic crime did matthew commit that we all need to be afflicted with the spittle-flecked rantings of the moronic pimp hand strikes?

Posted by: howard on April 21, 2007 11:40 AM

RE: relying on television for news

I recently was required to set a co-worker's clock straight when he failed to see the parallels between Wiki and eBay.

You see, he was forcefed one of those Faux "News" features about how Wiki gets changed by "anyone" so it must be bad, but he has no problem asking me to bid on sports equipment on eBay for him. I had to explain to him the concept of open source.

I might have made a few scratches, but I'm afraid Bill'O has hardened the shell for far too long.

Posted by: Bugboy on April 21, 2007 06:23 PM

Olbermann is obnoxious and more of an oaf than Bill O'Reilly.

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