From this morning’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which carries the veteran reporter’s column, Helen Thomas’s j’accuse says the Democrats not only blew it by not focusing on the war in last year’s election, but the Democrats “could have kept more Americans alive by calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq”:

Funny thing about the United States and Great Britain. I once thought their people cared about the credibility — and accountability of their leaders — especially when it comes to war and peace. But now I note with regret that the voters in both nations have other priorities. … Didn’t the Brits say Saddam Hussein could attack in 45 minutes?


The historic election of Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair for a third term is a stunning affirmation that the British people no longer demand credibility from their leaders. … More below

In the case of Bush, the ill-advised war against Iraq did not take center stage in the presidential election last November. His opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., had voted for the war and delivered a coup de grace to himself by saying he would have done the same thing — invade Iraq, even after it had become apparent to all that the pretext for the invasion — Saddam’s imaginary weapons of mass destruction — was a mirage. Kerry blew it big time.


The war issue became irrelevant at that point, not that it was highlighted in any major way by the timid Democrats, who should have knocked it out of the park.


Instead, they were afraid of being accused of not supporting the troops. Nonsense. They could have kept more Americans alive by calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq. Nearly 1,600 Americans are dead now and thousands wounded.


All along, writes Thomas, “Bush obviously wanted a war and Blair wanted to be a player.”


About the reaction to leaked secret memo, Thomas despairs:

The report was not disavowed by the British government. At the time of the memo, Bush officials were insisting they had no plans to attack Iraq.


I am not surprised at the duplicity. But I am astonished at the acceptance of this deception by voters in the United States and the United Kingdom.


I’ve seen two U.S. presidents go down the drain — Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam and Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal — because they were no longer believed. But times change — and I guess our values do, too.


From “Credibility matters little to Brits, Americans,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 13, 2005

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Helen, this is not a defense against your accusations, because I think you’re correct. But, if every reporter were as dogged and fearless as you, we might have a very different reaction in this country to Bush and Blair’s lies.


From my April 6 BooTrib story, “Why media ownership matters”:

As the Pentagon has learned, deploying the American media is more powerful than any bomb. The explosive effect is amplified as a few pro-war, pro-government media moguls consolidate their grip over the majority of news outlets. Media monopoly and militarism go hand in hand.

When it comes to issues of war and peace, the results of having a compliant media are as deadly to our democracy as they are to our soldiers. Why do the corporate media cheerlead for war? One answer lies in the corporations themselves — the ones that own the major news outlets.


[…..]


As Phil Donahue, the former host of MSNBC’s highest-rated show who was fired by the network in February 2003 for bringing on anti-war voices, told “Democracy Now!,” “We have more [TV] outlets now, but most of them sell the Bowflex machine. The rest of them are Jesus and jewelry. There really isn’t diversity in the media anymore. Dissent? Forget about it.”

The lack of diversity in ownership helps explain the lack of diversity in the news. When George W. Bush first came to power, the media watchers Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) looked at who appeared on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Ninety-two percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male, and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, there was even less diversity of opinion on the airwaves. During the critical two weeks before and after Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations where he made his case for war, FAIR found that just three out of 393 sources — fewer than 1 percent — were affiliated with anti-war activism.

Three out of almost 400 interviews. And that was on the “respectable” evening news shows of CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS. …


— Amy Goodman’s (and her brother’s) op-ed in The Seattle Times: subscription, free):