Drowning Out the Real Issues

"The report had real consequences," McClellan said last Monday. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation. It will take work to undo what can be undone."

It was equally mind boggling listening to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who used information from a now discredited source known as "Curveball" to take make the case for war against Iraq, calling out Newsweek: "Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources, which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations."

It was almost as if the Newsweek fiasco had occurred in a vacuum, or in an alternate reality, where the Iraq war, fought over non-existent weapons of mass destruction, had never occurred. The scenario unfolded over the past two weeks in a Twilight Zone-like atmosphere in which an administration that has held neither itself nor any of its underlings accountable for a war that has so far cost more than 1,600 American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives worked itself into a tizzy for a brief report in a news magazine -- based on an anonymous source -- that turned out to be unsubstantiated.

It's a curious line of attack from an administration known for rarely admitting a mistake.

In this alternate reality universe, the president never bestowed upon former director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, who told the president that the Iraq WMD intelligence was a "slam dunk," the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.

In this alternative reality universe, Vice President Cheney never suggested that the evidence of ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were "overwhelming." In this alternate reality universe, the president never warned that Iraq was seeking "yellowcake" uranium from Nigeria to build a nuclear weapon.

In this alternative reality universe, former Secretary of State Powell did not go to the U.N. to make an extensive argument about Iraq's renewed WMD program. In this alternate reality universe, America's image with Arabs and Muslims was pristine until Newsweek showed up, with its little Periscope item, and ruined everything.

This is all hyperbole, of course. This is not to suggest that the media shouldn't be held accountable for its mistakes. It should.

Some mistakes, such as the one Dan Rather made, are more serious and compounded by a string of mistakes that include not quickly acknowledging error. The Newsweek mistake is something that could have happened to almost any journalist who relies or has relied on a single source for information.

"There but for the grace of God go I," most Washington reporters are saying this week.

But is that proof of liberal conspiracy?

"Excuse me, guys, but this is craziness," wrote David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, on Thursday. "I used to write for Newsweek. I know Mike Isikoff and the editors. And I know about liberals in the media. The people who run Newsweek are not a bunch of Noam Chomskys with laptops. Not even close. Whatever might have been the cause of their mistakes, liberalism had nothing to do with it."