Daily Bush-Bashing at the Washington Post

By all accounts (at least the fair and balanced ones) President Bush gave an eloquent defense of his international policy decisions yesterday in Cleveland, Ohio. PowerLine thinks so:

The full text of the excellent speech on Iraq President Bush gave in Cleveland yesterday is available here. The centerpiece of the speech was an extended narrative of events in Tal Afar (or Tall 'Afar), which coalition forces recently liberated from the grip of al Qaeda. President Bush quoted briefly from the inspiring letter of thanks that the Mayor of Tal Afar wrote to the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment. We wrote about the liberation of Tal Afar and quoted the Mayor's letter in full here. I think the blogosphere deserves some credit for spreading the word about this important story.

Yes, indeed, the blogosphere does deserve credit. But count on the Washington Post to start undermining the story immediately:

CLEVELAND, March 20 -- As President Bush tells the tale, the battle for Tall Afar offers a case study in how U.S. and Iraqi forces working together can root out insurgents and restore stability. "The example of Tall Afar," he told an audience here Monday, "gives me confidence in our strategy."

Reports from the streets of Tall Afar, half a world away, offer a more complex story. U.S. forces last fall did drive out radicals who had brutalized the mid-size city near the Syrian border. But lately, residents say, the city has taken another dark turn. "The armed men are fewer," Nassir Sebti, 42, an air-conditioning mechanic, told a Washington Post interviewer Monday, "but the assassinations between Sunni and Shiites have increased."

You know, you always wonder about general nouns such as the one that begins the second graf above, "Reports." In this particular paragraph, the source is a "Washington Post interviewer." But who is this "interviewer?" A reporter? A Sunni Iraqi who hates the U.S. and has an agenda? A Spanish Commie stringing for the Post? (We're told at the end that this individual is a Post "employee" which is no more enlightening, as it's not uncommon to have local stringers in foreign countries whose objectivity is not verifiable.) It's just like the other articles that start with an assertion by the President and immediately follow by asserting: "But critics say..." Who the hell are these critics? Often, we're not told. But we're given the impression, correct or not, that their numbers are legion.

Reporter Peter Baker continues with the studied skepticism:

If Americans knew about the success stories, the White House maintains, they would understand Bush's confidence of victory.

Yet even the success stories seem to come with asterisks. The administration hailed the election of a new democratic parliament last year, but the new body has so far proved incapable of forming a government for more than three months.

Yet, yet, but, but. Just keep undercutting away. Baker continues:

All this has taken its toll on Bush's credibility, Republican strategists say, making it hard for him to make people see what he sees in Iraq.

Well, yeah! When all people ever read, when all they ever see on TV is piece after piece, story after story whose sole purpose is to recreate the Vietnam "quagmire" in the Iraqi sands, of course this has taken its toll on Bush's credibility. If Baker and his pals had people beating on them 24/7 with this same kind of relentless ferocity, they'd be in the same boat.

Baker at least gives Bush the last word in this article, after undercutting him again. But the intentional damage is already done, so he can afford to appear gracious. Yet that apparent graciousness, like the alleged objectivity of this piece, is only a Gramscian ruse. The Post's alternative reality has already supplanted the truth in the reader's mind. Propaganda doesn't have to be shrill to be effective.