Wes Clark: Surge Didn't Stabilize Iraq; All Credit Belongs to Saudi Arabia and, um, Iran

At least the media has stopped pretending the surge didn't work and is now arguing about why it worked. Or, rather, why things just happened to get better simultaneously with the deployment of the surge troops and surge strategy.

Jonah Goldberg once observed that this is the way media bias hurts liberals. The MSM protects and defends its liberal heroes almost to the death. Key word here: almost.

Liberals come to rely on this protection. They never are forced to shift their position or confess error because the media continues insisting their positions are unquestionably correct and they've made no errors at all.

But this protection can only go so far. At some point, the public stops listening to the media and turns on liberals. In which case liberals are blindsided -- they were accustomed to the warm cocoon of media protection, and believed it would insulate them from public disatisfaction forever, and then suddenly they're ripped away from it, unprepared to face an angry public.

Once in a great while the media is even forced -- as it is here -- to actually admit the obvious truth. In which case liberals are really shocked, for now their unofficial campaign coordinators in the media are catcalling and hooting as well.

Conservatives, meanwhile, are rarely surprised. We know the media is always going to pummel us, and lead public opinion against us. (As a result many conservatives are defensive about their programs and skittishly RINO, but at least they see the oncoming trains.)

95% of the time liberal media bias works against conservatives. 5% of the time, though, the media's endless cheerleading for the Democratic Party backfires and leaves liberals exposed and scratching their heads wondering what the hell just happened.

posted by Ace at 01:47 PM

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