Never Taking Responsibility

Recently on Good Morning America, Michael Moore was being interviewed by anchor-stud Chris Cuomo. During the interview, Moore took ABC and the rest of the mainstream media to task for not asking the tough questions during the run-up to the Iraq War. Cuomo nearly lost it. Here is the video:

As I have said before, the press will never take responsibility for the mess in Iraq and the role they played by laying down. Yet, this is still going on. Just yesterday during the daily press briefing, Tony Snow made the argument that increased violence in Iraq means that we are making progress.

Q Let me follow on that, because I think some American officials have called this an act of desperation. And I'm wondering how this is seen as an act of desperation. Does that mean that the terrorists are so concerned that they're sort of being shut down, and that the surge is so effective that they're now desperate to make a statement?

MR. SNOW: Well, I think, again -- a couple of things. It does fit a pattern that we see throughout the region, which is that when you see things moving towards success, or when you see signs of success, that there are acts of violence. We saw that, certainly -- we've seen that in Lebanon, once again, today, tragically. We also saw it earlier in Lebanon. We have seen it on a number of occasions where, when Israel and the Palestinians seem to be getting close to a deal, there are kidnapings and acts of violence.

What you have seen in the last couple of months -- it's well documented -- is, increasingly, Iraqis are turning against al Qaeda. And that has been one of the sort of heartening developments. You've not only seen it in Anbar Province, but you've seen it elsewhere.

So one of the responses one might expect for al Qaeda at a time like this -- when the Iraqi people are turning against them as foreign fighters, essentially invading the country and trying to commit acts of bloodshed against innocents in order to blow the country apart -- that it would be one of those acts of desperation once again to try to get the Iraqis to fight one another, rather than training their sights on al Qaeda.

By utilizing Snow's logic, we would assume that decreased violence would indicate that things are actually going poorly. In the mind of any sane individual however, this line of reasoning would be forcefully rejected. If the press were really doing their job and asking the tough questions, Snow would have been laughed out of the room. Perhaps, one of the reporters would have said "That is the most ridiculous load of bullshit I have ever heard. Ever." Instead, the follow-up to his response was the following:

Q This could actually be read, then, as a sign of success for the American --

This is exactly what Moore was talking about, rather than exposing the twisted logic and half-truths of the Bush Administration, the media continues to lap up whatever half-assed explanations are being doled out.