Some unintentional truth at the New York Times
{Guest Post by See-Dubya}
Karl at Protein Wisdom caught New York Times theater critic turned editorial writer Frank Rich in a humdinger, apparently confusing “the majority of Americans” with “the majority of New York Times readers”. In a column portraying the recent fight in Basra between Iraqi forces and the Mahdi army a new “Tet offensive” (oooh–Iraq-Vietnam analogy? How edgy.), Rich reveals himself as pretty out of touch with America:
For the majority of Americans who haven’t met any of the brave troops who’ve been cavalierly tossed into the quagmire, the war is out of sight and mind in a way Vietnam never was. Only 28 percent of Americans knew American casualties in Iraq were nearing 4,000 last month, according to the Pew Research Center. The Project for Excellence in Journalism found that by March 2008 the percentage of prominent news stories that were about Iraq had fallen to about one-fifth of what it was in January 2007.
Really? Rich means one of two things there. Either he thinks that the majority of Americans have never met a soldier who’s served in Iraq, which is laughable, OR he’s writing about the majority of the tiny subset of Americans who have never met a soldier who’s served in Iraq. (In other words…the New York Times readership?) Either way, Rich sounds utterly clueless about how broadly Iraq deployments have affected mainstream America. Rich sounds like another famous New York Times critic, Pauline Kael, who is supposed to have wondered how America elected Nixon in 1972 when she didn’t know a single person who voted for him.
He’s got a point about the coverage falling off in Iraq, though. News there got better, and the stories dried up. Which brings me to a more substantive criticism of Rich’s column:
That’s why it’s no surprise that so few stopped to absorb the disastrous six-day battle of Basra that ended last week — a mini-Tet that belied the “success” of the surge. Even fewer noticed that the presumptive Republican nominee seemed at least as oblivious to what was going down as President Bush, no tiny feat.
The Tet offensive was actually an American military victory, spun by the American media into an American defeat.
Frank Rich, though perhaps he might never be called “the Most Trusted Man in America”, is trying to insert himself into the Basra narrative as Walter Cronkite. But in fact, despite Rich’s and the MSM’s attempts to spin it as such, the truth about Basra is that it was no defeat for the Iraqi army:
In Basra the nascent Iraqi Army—also riddled with incompetence and self-doubt—actually came out looking better against Iraq’s well-established militias than the American Army had 65 years earlier against the entrenched Nazis, says retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey. “At Kasserine we got our asses kicked. These people didn’t,” McCaffrey says.
Despite a spate of early grim assessments of Basra in the U.S. media, U.S. military observers on the ground in Iraq are more sanguine, says McCaffrey, who has long been a critic of the war.
A slightly more honest and knowledgeable critic of the war than Frank Rich, I might append.
RELATED: Curt at Flopping Aces catches some Iraq bias and proffers an interesting theory about it:
I tell ya why…..Petraeus is testifying this week so the ground needs to be prepped for the Democrats.
Interesting. But I’m not buying…the Democrats would never make out a war hero like General Petraeus to be some kind of liar.
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Well Rich is right, for the side he was rooting for at least, Basra was a disaster. Al-Sadr got his tail kicked big time. His long overdue end is near, I hope.
If Frank Rich is the standard of measure, we don’t have the bar set very high.
Rich or Sadr?
General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will meet with Congress tomorrow to discuss Iraq. Should be very interesting…
I suspect that the MSM will conveniently omit the Iranians involvement in the Basra conflict. They could careless about the truth.
LOL… and just how are they going to spin it when Mooky decides to DISBAND his army?
He’s already abrogated the decision to higher religious authority in Iran and Iraq… which was his last chance.
IF, as I suspect, Al Sistani (sp?) won’t make a decision FOR him, Mooky is going to have to disband.
Why should they start caring now, Soap? They will either deny it or downplay it to the bitter end.
Whenever I need to understand what’s happening in a war zone, I always turn to a theater critic. Oh - is that “theatre’ instead? Like the “Living Dead”, the MSM wanders aimlessly, intellect long dead…
Here is where the problem is, a theater critic writing stuff about the war. I bet he thinks wrestling is real and the moon shot was fake.
Great line, See-Dubya! I just had to repeat it because it so epitomizes the liberal MSM-elitists’ mind-set.
Barry F.,
We’ve shot ourselves in the foot by concluding based on the NIE that Iran is no longer pursuing nuclear weapons.
Now Petraeus is going to discuss halting the troop reductions based on Iran’s involvement…
And there isn’t anything we can do about it other than remaining committed to stay the course.
I don’t think that a logical human being who is familiar with the political bias behind that NIE -opinion-would agree that Iran is no longer a threat. Then again, a lot of people in America get their hard news from The Daily Show.
Yeah, we have a problem. I’m just glad Israel is so well armed.
Let’s recall that Frank Rich has made other “mistakes” which he is reluctant to correct. After Hurricane Katrina, Rich insisted that FEMA Director Brown was selected to his FEMA job because Brown was the “college roommate” of someone high in the Bush administration (I forgot who it was was). As it turned out, Brown was not the college roommate of the high government official that Rich alleged had appointed Brown. I am still waiting for Rich’s correction. If Rich is wrong about a simple personnel matter, how can anyone believe that Rich would do his homework to try to understand the war in Iraq?
Frank Rich = real journalist? Since when does a “theater critic” become an editorial writer? No wonder the NY Times has problems.
Here’s a question for ole Frankie: have you ever been to Iraq? Have you ever seen what our guys and gals are doing over there? Have you ever personally witnessed the hard work and dedication it takes to get Iraq’s military (and police) to be independent and self-sustaining?
If Lara Logan, the former swimsuit model, of CBS News, can report on the Iraq War in the field, then why can’t ole Frankie boy? Oh, that’s right, kevlar isn’t a complimentary fashion accessory for him, now is it?
Last I heard something like 600-700 of the Mahdi army were killed during the battle. I might be wrong, but that sure sounds like a relatively large number of losses for that group to sustain. Why else would they be calling for a cease fire if they weren’t knocked back on their heels?
Very funny article.
The outbreak in Brasa is a piss-ant sized fire fight compared to Tet.
I liked the part about not knowing anyone who voted for Nixon. How could anyone who has there nose so far up Walter Cronkite’s butt know anyone other than liberal dufasses.
Rich not only displayed his lack of knowledge about Iraq but now adds Nam to the mix. He needs to stick to Annie, Cats and Chorus Line.
That about sums up the MSM coverage of the war. If they cannot find some bad news about our team making mistakes or killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, they damn sure are not going to report all the good that has taken place.
To be mistaken of 30 pieces of silver is the best compliment is have had in some time. Thanks Barry!
For Rich, just in case you may read this, here is a link to some information about Tet.
Instructions for Frank. Click HERE then read - only one picture.
Michelle, that had to have been an attempt at humor. Surely you haven’t forgotten Shrillary’s “willing suspension of disbelief” statement, right?
1. It is See-Dubya’s post.
2. The quote above was sarcastic.
The bad guys have a long way to go when it comes to starting another Tet Offensive. A couple of days of fighting and the Iraqi forces handed the militias their butts. It appears we are really winning over they since they are trying to spin like they did in the 60s. The only difference this time is we have other sources of news other than the MSM.
I am privilidged to work around young people that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan everyday. We still have seven souls from my squadron over there right now. From what I hear from those that have served and those there now we continue to win hearts and minds while killing bad guys every day marching towards victory no matter how badly the MSM and their liberal allies want us to lose.
Now, I’ll admit that it is possible that I have not met, in person, someone who has served in either Afghanistan or Iraq. I generally don’t ask vets (or active duty) where they have served.
I do, however, say “Thank you” whenever I see one in uniform, and am teaching my children to do the same. And, since I live about 4 miles away from an ANG base, I can almost guarantee that I have thanked at least a few who have been over there.
The problem here the use of “logical”. Leftist positions come primarily from emotion, not logic.
Part of why we’re winning:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/029882.html
After you read that(and wipe your eyes), be sure and read this one as well:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/001254.html
The link from Wade says it all,Tet was a disaster for the North and VC.They were killed wholesale just like Mookies boys.We lost the battle in the MSM.All we had were the big 3 networks and we all know how they can’t stand a winner.I think Mookie has one of those red dots between the eyes looking for him and he knows it.I would bet his pucker factor is on high alert.
Your writing is really unclear.
The link your provided on the Pauline Kael quote asserts that it’s apocryphal.
Did you think of reading and discussing the main content of the Rich column? No. You would rather bash an errant sentence.
When Bob Dole was in the midst of his lackluster presidential campaign, there was a media dustup over the sitcom character Murphy Brown becoming a “single mom.”
Bob Dole joined many other voices deploring the aid offered up by Hollywood in undercutting our cultural values. What Dole had said, went no further than that.
Frank Rich weighed in, offering up in his column the opinion that speaking out against Hollywood as Dole had done was “anti-Semitism.”
Ever since Rich damned this American war hero who had suffered grievously fighting the Nazis with this utterly baseless slander, I have had no interest in Frank Rich except for eager anticipation of the day in which the Times will publish the scumbag’s obit.