The Media's Herd Mentality, Easily Spooked into a Stampede

For a full year war supporters have been pushing the truth on the media, that the surge was working (had worked at this point). We were ignored.

Suddenly it's the new Conventional Wisdom. In a matter of days.

Proof? Even Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom watch -- confessed by Newsweek reporters to simply be the "conventional wisdom" of liberal reporters talking to each other -- now says so.

Et tu, Howard Finemann? As was once said of Walter Cronkite regarding Vietnam, "If we've lost Newsweek, we've lost America."

Graphic taken from Newsbusters, who have a bit more.

The MSM has vigorously denied the success of the surge on the few occasions they bothered to mention it -- mostly they just censored the story, and removed it from the front (or even middle) pages entirely, lest the public get the wrong idea.

Now suddenly they are all falling over themselves to admit it did work, hoping, I guess, to keep the pain to a minimum, like pulling off a Band-Aid quickly.

But there is not particular recent event proving the surge worked. This has long been known. It's been working for a long time. If liberal reporters are all flatly admitting it worked now, that means they've strongly suspected it's been working for a long time. As in -- at least six months, if not more.

And they've known it's worked for some shorter period. How long? At least a month, almost certainly two, probably three or more.

So where can we find an accounting of their own behavior? Why have they refused to even hint -- or speculate -- that the surge was working for so long?

To borrow another Vietnam-era quote: What did they know, and when did they know it?

And -- The cover-up is always worse than the crime.

The MSM castigated itself -- or rather, castigated the Bush Administration and a few select scapegoats (like Judth Miller) in the guise of castigating itself -- wondering how it had gotten the case for the Iraq War so badly.

I trust, of course, the self-criticism machine is ramping up again to give the public a full accounting of their selective, cherry-picked reportage and twisted intelligence as regards the surge. I'm sure we'll soon have an apologia from the MSM for lying to the public so wantonly and for so long.

I'm sure of a lot of things. I'm insane.

Oh, I'm not even bothering to take issue with the claim that McCain's surge success helps Obama. For one thing, I'm not certain they're wrong. (But I'm beginning to think they are.)

For another -- Baby Steps. I think it helps them psychologically accept the loss of not losing a war by believing it helps advance the cause of their war-losing champion. So let them deal with their grief as they will.

Thanks to CJ.

posted by Ace at 02:03 PM

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