The mainstream media have become the fourth branch of government. Peter Beinart is a political pundit and member in good standing of this fourth branch. From Justin Raimondo, who is certainly not a member in good standing, at antiwar.com:
Peter Beinart asks some pretty good questions: he wants to know why the same crowd that lied us into war in Iraq isn’t completely discredited when it comes to their opposition to the recently concluded deal with Iran. No, he doesn’t put it quite that way, in part because, by his own admission, he was one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for what he now describes as “one of the most important, and damaging, episodes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.” He frames his question this way:
“I have a fantasy. It’s that every politician and pundit who goes on TV to discuss the Iran deal is asked this question first: ‘Did you support the Iraq War, and how has that experience informed your position?’”
Beinart is right to regard this as a fantasy, because it will never happen. Yet he fails to ask why that is. Instead, he vents his spleen:
“Again and again, pundits who championed the invasion of Iraq – people like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer – appear on television advocating the same worldview they advocated in 2002 and 2003, and get to pretend that nothing has happened over the last 15 years to throw that worldview into question. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which championed the invasion of Iraq (which is not to suggest that AIPAC caused it), can mount a mammoth lobbying campaign against the Iran deal without being asked why, given its track record, anyone should listen to it this time. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 2002 told Congress that ‘There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is … advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons’ and that ‘If you take out … Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,’ can appear on Sunday show after Sunday show smugly lecturing the host about the state of Iran’s nuclear program and the Iran deal’s implications for the Middle East without having his earlier comments read back to him.”
“To a degree that will baffle historians,” Beinart continues, “the political-intellectual complex that made the Iraq War possible remains intact, and powerful. Amnesia is part of the reason why.”
Does Beinart really believe the media complex that gives the War Party a guaranteed platform suffers from amnesia? I hardly think so. And as for the historians, surely they’ll be a bit more perceptive than Beinart gives them credit for.
The answer to Beinart’s conundrum is that there’s no difference whatsoever between the media and “the political-intellectual complex that made the Iraq War possible.” As writers like Glenn Greenwald have demonstrated again and again (and again) the “mainstream” media functions as the regime’s Praetorian Guard. As Greenwald put it in this tweet:
“US Govt officials today told me X, and ordered me to conceal their identity as I uncritically parrot it. I obeyed. The End. Hire me, NYT!”
Nothing dramatizes this government-media symbiosis better than the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, when it was the American (and British) media that led the lynch mob screaming for the whistleblower’s blood (even as they profited from their coverage of his revelations). When Greenwald appeared on “Meet the Press,” host David Gregory demanded to know why he shouldn’t be arrested for “aiding and abetting” Snowden, while Chuck “The Suckup” Todd wondered about what role Greenwald had in facilitating Snowden’s flight to Moscow.
Beinart remembers the Iraq war, and greatly regrets his role in ginning it up, but how much does he really recall? His memory seems slightly impaired, if you ask me, because while he holds the feet of pundits like Kristol and Krauthammer to the fire, he nowhere asks why the “news” media isn’t being held accountable. Yet these were the primary culprits.
To contiue reading: Peter Beinart’s Fantasy
