Say Anything Blog

Despite the fact that the now-declassified summary of the National Intelligence Estimate shows that the findings of the report, though somewhat mixed, are rather supportive of the President’s decision to invade Iraq the media continues to refer to it as a “bleak assessment.” In fact, a Google News search for “bleak national security estimate” shows that the term, or some derivative of it, is being used again and again by journalists to describe the report.

The New York Times is saying the report shows the invasion of Iraq was a “cataclysmic disaster.” USA Today is saying the report shows “the war has unquestionably intensified global anger toward the USA and made the world a more dangerous place.”

The Boston Globe takes the amazingly galling position of stating that a full-on declassification of the entire NIE report (rather than just the summary) would “clear the air of White House propaganda.” As though the summary of the memo wasn’t already declassified to clear the air of anti-Bush propaganda being pushed by the press/Democrats who were busy hyping the cherry-picked portions of the memo which were leaked previously.

Just as anecdotal evidence of how well and fully Americans have been deceived with this coordinated political hit (and that’s exactly what it is), I actually heard a man sitting at another table at breakfast today tell his friends that Bush “is now leaking classified information for political purposes.” The media publishes illegally leaked information from the NIE so the President declassifies the full summary of the report to clear the air and then he gets accused of playing politics.  Unbelievable, isn’t it?  And yet that’s exactly the angle the media/Democrats are pushing now.  Along with the idea that the full NIE memo should now be declassified, which is a bit of a convenient strawman for them.  They know full well that the entire NIE report can’t be published as it contains some very specific details about what we know about our enemies and how we found it out, yet that won’t stop them from calling for it to draw attention away from the political motivations behind the original leak of information.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get at is the one Jules Crittenden makes in this column in the Boston Herald:

The events of the last few days have created some misunderstandings regarding U.S. intelligence in the War on Terrorism, its appropriate uses and interpretation, and the role of politicians and the press in that process.

It started over the weekend when the New York Times, based on fragmentary information leaked to them by unnamed sources, reported that U.S. intelligence agencies have agreed that the Iraq war is fueling global jihad.The Associated Press amplified that the next day in a story that devoted its first 10 inches or so to Democrats bashing the Bush administration and calling for a pullout in Iraq, while burying the suggestions of Republicans and administration officials that there might be other things in the report worth noting.

Subsequent news reports continue to be distorted, omitting or burying key elements while seizing on sensational aspects such as the description of the Iraq war as a “cause celebre” among terrorists. Those news reports would have you believe that President Bush lied when he said the United States is winning the War on Terrorism. They have characterized the NIE’s assessment as “bleak.”

[...]

The document makes no judgment about whether we are winning or losing War on Terrorism, and does not dwell on the historical fact that, five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, al-Qaeda’s efforts at follow-on thus far have been thwarted.

But there is nothing particularly “bleak” about the estimate of our nations’ top intelligence analysts. Not unless you are one of those people who would prefer to remain under the covers rather than face the business at hand, this war that has been forced on us by people who want to destroy our way of life. And mid-war, I believe we can estimate that is not a particularly intelligent approach.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

If you take one thing away from this whole mess make it this: It is campaign season, and the media is once again engaging in selective reporting aimed at making the President/Republicans look foolish while simultaneously furthering Democrat talking points.  These journalists are actively misleading the American people by blatantly and repeatedly misrepresenting the contents of a document they hope few Americans actually take the time to read.