It's not "Lying Liars," but Joseph Wilson is now publicizing a memo by Sam Gardiner (USAF Colonel, Retired) titled "Truth from the Podia" that details the lies and distortions told by the Bush administration about the war in Iraq. (For a briefer note, see the US News intro.)
At this point, of course, I pretty much assume that a) the administration lies to get its agenda through, and b) no one really seems to care. There's an echo of this in the postscript to the memo:
The reactions to my research have been very interesting.When I show the stuff to individuals inside the government, mostly the career people who have been around more than one administration, they have an almost universal first reaction. They say something like, "Be careful with this; they will punish you." I don't hear that I have gotten it wrong. They don't correct my research. I keep hearing the notion that, as I found in the research, punishment of those who disagree is a dimension the strategy.
Print media have been quite interested. I think reporters like the idea of someone confirming they had not been getting the true story. I have detected a major issue in these discussions in what reporters have not said to me.
I think the materials point to problems in the way newspapers did their job during the war. Why don't they react immediately that they need to do some self-appraisal? I think one could take the stories I have highlighted and ask some direct questions. How was it that the Washington Post took classified information on the Jessica Lynch story and published it just the way the individual leaking it in the Pentagon wanted? Why did the New York Times let itself be used by "intelligence officials" on stories? Why did the Washington Times never seem to question a leak they were given? Why were newspapers in the UK better than those in the U.S. in raising questions before and during the war?
I've not heard any self-criticism from reporters to whom I have talked.
When I've talked to television producers and reporters my sense is they believe the whole story is just too complex to tell. That's sad but probably true.
Cynicism is the most disturbing reaction I have found. I got from a limo driver who was taking me to the MSNBC studio for a debate on the no WMD story. He said, "It's just what politicians do."
I gave a briefing on my research to one of the major Washington research organizations, a think tank. A major thrust of reactions was to keep asking, "What's new." This kind of thing always takes place. I think I heard laughter when I said there was no passion for truth in those who were taking us to war. Didn't I understand what goes on in government?
I pain for the limo driver because leaders have pushed him to cynical. I pain even more for the senior researcher. He seems to have no sense of a higher vision. I pain for our democratic process when I find individuals not angered at being deceived.
The colonel's probably right, that the public (myself included) should be angry about all this, but at the risk of sounding like Luke Skywalker, it's all too big and too far removed from us to really do anything about. Sure, some will cry "get involved!" but what does that mean? Write to our congressman? Run for city council? Only read international news sources? Blow up our TV? Start a weblog? All of these responses may be perfectly valid, but none of them will really make a dent in the System. So those of us who know we're being lied to (which probably excludes FOX viewers) don't like it, but also recognize that there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it.
Posted by Jason at October 14, 2003 12:54 PM