The New York Times put U.S. politicians on notice Tuesday: If you try to mislead the American people with dishonest campaign ads, they'll sic Jim Rutenberg on you, and he'll splash your lies all over the most influential front page in the country. Or some of them, anyway. Especially if you are John Kerry. Not so much if you are President Bush.
But that's not all. The Times also served notice that any politician who goes on national television to try to mislead voters will find Elisabeth Bumiller on his or her tail, and she'll … well, never mind.
Rutenberg's piece on dishonest campaign ads Tuesday would have been a solid piece of reporting -- if the campaign ads it focused on were the only ones he had to choose from. But the story ignores some of the Bush campaign's more egregious TV spots, such as the claim that Kerry's single vote against a defense appropriations act in 1990 was equivalent to 87 votes against critical weapons systems.
Keeping Rutenberg's piece company on the front page was Bumiller's coverage of President Bush's Monday night speech at the Army War College. If said coverage had been written in the same spirit as the article on campaign ads, here are just a couple of things it might have pointed out:
- During his speech, the president continued to conflate the Iraq War, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, with the September 11 terrorist attacks and the battle against al-Qaeda.
- He tried to palm off responsibility for poor postwar planning on the military itself, rather than Pentagon neoconservatives who shot down requests for a much larger commitment of troops.
Perhaps it has simply become too commonplace to note it anymore, but fairness would seem to require that when the president implicitly connects al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks in various countries around the world with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he be required to explain why he believes in a connection that many experts seriously doubt.
Bumiller makes no such demand, but lets readers enjoy a snippet of the president's more lofty rhetoric: "As he concluded his remarks, Mr. Bush said that 'in the last 32 months, history has placed great demands on our country.' The United States, he said, 'did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope, or tend toward tragedy.'"
A little more context would make it clear that the president is continuing in his attempt to convince Americans, apparently by sheer force of repetition, that there is a direct connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Here's the full quote: "In the last 32 months, history has placed great demands on our country and events have come quickly. Americans have seen the flames of September 11, followed battles in the mountains of Afghanistan, and learned new terms like 'orange alert' and 'ricin' and 'dirty bomb.' We've seen killers at work on trains in Madrid, in a bank in Istanbul, in a synagogue in Tunis and a nightclub in Bali. And now the families of our soldiers and civilian workers pray for their sons and daughter in Mosul and Karbala and Baghdad. We did not seek this war on terror. But this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope or tend toward tragedy."
The president's speechwriters neatly wrap up September 11, Madrid, and Bali with Mosul, Karbala, and Baghdad, creating the impression that these are all part of the same struggle.
Bumiller and others in the national media continue to allow the president to push this story in speeches and other appearances without ever noting the credible critics, like former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, who said, "There's just no connection. There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al-Qaeda."
On the issue of troop levels in Iraq, Bumiller also gave the president a free pass: "Mr. Bush also held out little hope for a quick withdrawal of American soldiers, and said he would maintain troop levels of 138,000 ‘as long as necessary.' If American commanders on the ground needed more troops, Mr. Bush said, ‘I will send them.'"
What the president actually said was slightly, but significantly, different: "Our commanders had estimated that a troop level below 115,000 would be sufficient at this point in the conflict. Given the recent increase in violence, we'll maintain our troop level at the current 138,000 as long as necessary. General [John] Abizaid and other commanders in Iraq are constantly assessing the level of troops they need to fulfill the mission. If they need more troops I will send them."
In Bumiller's version, the president is simply steeling America for a difficult task and expressing determination to see the job through. The unfiltered Bush, however, implies that senior commanders miscalculated, transferring to them responsibility for unexpectedly long troop deployments and the unexpectedly large commitment of men and material.
That there were no jeers from the audience demonstrates either how well-disciplined our military officers are or how well the White House advance team screened the guest list. Original estimates of the number of troops required to occupy Iraq after an invasion were offered in February 2003 to Congress by General Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff. He said that 300,000 troops would be needed to maintain order in Iraq, and was accused of being "wildly off the mark" by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
In a book released Tuesday, former Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, once the main U.S. commander in the Middle East, writes, "Everybody in the military knew [Shinseki] was right. But the party line down from the Pentagon decreed that the number was half that, and he was pilloried."
Typically, politicians complain when their quotes are taken out of context.But in this case, Bumiller seems to be doing the president a favor.
Rob Garver is a freelance journalist living in Springfield, Va., and is currently studying at Georgetown Public Policy Institute.
