WMD - about those trailers
What's old is new again and just like Hollywood, the adversarial press retreads old stories with only minor changes in constant attempts to damage the administration. Some local news stations, this morning, passed along a story uncritically and of course, it feeds into the notion that Bush lied and people died. Notice the sensational headline and the paragraph after the lead:
[...]
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
The problem is that what was being passed on is merely the headline and first couple paragaphs. Instant rebuttal from Captains Quarters:
[...]
What the Post neglects to mention in its sensationalist zeal is that this was one of several teams that investigated the trailers, and the totality of their evaluations came to a different conclusion that that of the leakers who supplied this story. Skip down to the 12th paragraph, which is when Joby Warrick finally gets around to providing the context:
Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
It should be noted that the 12th paragraph is at the very bottom of the first page. This most definitely positions it "below the fold" and makes one wonder how much they regretted not being wordy enough to get that paragraph bumped to page two. He goes on and captures the story more accurately than what I heard on the news this morning:
To put it in advertising terms, two out of three inspectors agreed that the trailers were part of Saddam's WMD effort. The Pentagon relied on that majority opinion, as did the administration, and no one can argue that doing so constituted either an intent to deceive or even an unreasonable decision at the time.
This type of herd mentality, incompetence, bias and sensationalism in service to and/or reinforced by all of the preceding is why the terms legacy media, dead wood media and the like, have come into being. When it only takes reading past the headline and opening paragraphs, to accurately report the story and that obviously is not done; a great deal is amiss and a lack of trust and respect for the "fourth estate" should not be surprising.
But don't bother the legacy media with that. They're too busy pimping, as if it's breaking news, a late Gnostic gospel, rightfully rejected centuries ago, simply because it's controversial to do so near Easter.
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Filed under: NewPolitics -- WMD -- Iraq -- Terrorism
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Author: Mark K. Sprengel | 6:55:00 PM |
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