The ABCs of Iraq Injuries

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 31, 2006 10:54 AM

Is Bob Woodruff getting too much coverage?

I was surprised to keep getting that question in yesterday's online chat .

"I am sorry to hear that Bob Woodruff and his cameraman was hurt in Iraq, but it seems like thousands of GI's and civilians have been seriously injured, and we hear very little about them," an Arlington reader said.

"It's a tragedy of course that the ABC crew has been seriously injured in Iraq -- but does it warrant the 'breaking news' coverage it's received?" said another in Bainbridge, Ga. "American soldiers and contractors are injured and worse every day over there and they barely get a few odd grafs."

A Madison, Wis., reader added: "Are they any more newsworthy than the injuries that befall our soldiers each and every day? Is this just media myopia?"

These are fair questions. Obviously, as an anchor for a major network, Woodruff enjoys a certain degree of fame, and famous people tend to get more media coverage. After all, Peter Jennings was only one of many who died of lung cancer, Martha Stewart was only one of many convicted in an insider trading case, and Kobe Bryant was only one of many accused of sexual assault. The outpouring of e-mail to ABC about Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt underscores the point.

Famous people also tend to become symbols, and Woodruff has become emblematic of the vulnerability of U.S. troops to these roadside IEDs, and of the media's difficulty in covering this war. Everyone I've talked to at ABC stresses that they understand that many American soldiers have been killed or wounded by these bombs, even though their names are not widely known. Woodruff and Vogt, of course, risked their lives precisely so they could tell the story of the war, and specifically whether Iraqi troops are able to assume more of the burden from the American forces.

I have worried aloud about whether the media are suffering from Iraq fatigue -- whether, as we approach the three-year mark of this bloody conflict, the daily drumbeat of five, 10 or 20 killed in Iraq gets shoved inside the paper as other news -- Abramoff, Alito, Katrina -- takes center stage. I think we need to guard against that as best we can. But it's not surprising that when a Bob Woodruff is badly injured or a Jill Carroll is kidnapped -- and it pains me to see everyone using her captors' latest cowardly videotape of her crying -- that this infuses the story with fresh attention and underscores the continuing dangers in Iraq for everyone, soldiers, contractors and journalists.

I've got the latest on the condition of Woodruff and Vogt here, and a bit on the short-term problem facing ABC News just weeks after naming its anchor team.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Ken Dilanian assesses the media impact of such incidents:

"Many journalists are forbidden by their security consultants from leaving the confines of their hotels. Though not in the protected Green Zone, those hotels are surrounded by armed guards and concrete blast walls. Often, news organizations send their Iraqi employees to do interviews and gather information.

"When they do go out, most Western reporters take elaborate precautions that range from armed escorts to security chase cars to disguises.

"Reporters always have the choice to embed with U.S. troops, but when they do that they are left to cover one dimension of the story in one confined military sector."

Still more pre-SOTU polls: NBC/WSJ has Bush at 39, Time at 41.

"A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that Americans identify troop reductions and action on health care as their top two priorities for the nation. Fully two-thirds say it's time to reduce troop levels in Iraq, while just 28% support maintaining existing troop levels," the Journal reports.

So . . . what was up with that charade of an Alito filibuster--charade in the sense that the Democrats who backed it knew full well that it was guaranteed to fail?

"Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy begged, cajoled, and thundered in their attempt to persuade colleagues to join them in blocking a vote on the Supreme Court confirmation of Samuel A. Alito Jr., but in the end yesterday they succeeded only in splitting the Democratic caucus," says the Boston Globe .

"Despite the Massachusetts Democrats' efforts, Republicans and moderate Democrats mustered 72 votes yesterday in favor of ending debate on Alito's nomination -- far more than the 60 votes needed to stop the filibuster. . . .

"The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, had argued in a closed Democratic caucus last week against mounting a filibuster, saying that it had no chance of success and that it would only distract from the party's focus on President Bush's domestic spying program, Republican lobbying scandals, and other potential election-year issues. . . .

"Several other Democrats who voted for the filibuster also did so with reluctance, saying that they had doubts about its wisdom but that they would go along with the effort. Kerry and Kennedy, however, were unapologetic."

"As the last obstacles to confirmation faded away Monday, Democratic aides said their party had initially expected Judge Alito to live up to his reputation as 'Scalito,' suggesting a conservative firebrand in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia," says the New York Times . "Failing to adjust to his meekness, Democratic aides admit they searched too hard for scandal in Judge Alito's past. . . .

"Some Republican Senate staff members said they initially worried that Judge Alito might be too nervous to perform well under the pressure of the hearings. In one of his early meetings with a Senate Republican, Judge Alito's hands shook as he compulsively tied and untied the lace of one shoe. . . .

"Judge Alito's political naïveté led to at least one early miscue. Unaccustomed to attention from the news media, Judge Alito looked surprised when White House aides advised him to dispatch a relative to guard his 90-year-old mother from inquiring journalists, one administration official said.

"The next day, The Associated Press quoted his mother saying, 'Of course, he is against abortion,' -- the first chink in his supporters' portrait of him as an impartial jurist with no preconceived views."

I've got a whole bunch of interesting posts on Abramoff,

Rich Lowry reports:

"Who would have predicted that ten years after taking Congress and promising to clean it up, Republicans would be rocked by their own set of scandals, including the abuse of earmarks for contributors? Actually, it was predictable, given the typical course of revolutions -- a burst of energy, followed by a period of consolidation -- and the inevitable temptations of power. . . .

"The House GOP is still hanging on. But it's a diminished majority, with one of its key leaders tarnished, with its political base restive, with its purpose in doubt. Republicans came to power on the strength of a revolution and have lost their way in an evolution: They came to Washington with an agenda. They built a machine to support that agenda. And as the agenda faded, the machine itself and its not-always-high-minded imperatives took on more prominence. A conservative who works closely with Congress interprets the Jack Abramoff scandal this way: 'It's when the Republican majority lost their moral high ground. The government became their government. The process became their process. The outsiders became the insiders.' "

Josh Marshall says the Abramoff pictures don't mean much; it's the reality behind the pictures:

"Let's just focus on a few key facts. For the first three years of Bush's presidency Abramoff was arguably the most wired Republican lobbyist in Washington.

"Bush doesn't know him?

"Abramoff was a long time associate of one of the president's top political advisors, Grover Norquist and his chief political guru Karl Rove.

"Bush never made his acquaintance?

"Every Republican power player in Washington knew Jack Abramoff. Many of them knew him very, very well. But President Bush never knew him? Their paths never crossed?

"That is simply ridiculous.

"What's more, everyone asking the questions knows it's ridiculous. The problem is that absent a 2+2=5 type statement they don't feel comfortable calling the president out as a liar."

Attorney Martin Garbus wonders if the White House is trying to damage the probe:

"At some point, it all becomes unbelievable.

"President George W. Bush has not made many moves more unethical than offering Noel L. Hillman, the Abramoff prosecutor, a federal judgeship. Hillman has apparently been talking with Bush's representatives since last year, and on last Thursday, he publicly announced he was accepting the appointment.

"Let me make this perfectly clear. At the same time that Mr. Hillman was conducting a grand jury and submitting evidence aimed at Bush's allies and perhaps Bush himself, he was meeting with Bush, who was, in effect, offering him a bribe.

"Mr. Hillman, Bush is saying, leave the job, let me put someone else in your stead, someone I want. Forget, says Mr. Bush, that you have been in charge of the investigation for two years, that you have been involved on a day-to-day basis, and that your leaving seriously impedes the investigation."

American Prospect's Greg Sargent :

"A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff's tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate.

"The analysis, which was commissioned by The American Prospect and completed on Jan. 25, was done by Dwight L. Morris and Associates, a for-profit firm specializing in campaign finance that has done research for many media outlets.

"In the weeks since Abramoff confessed to defrauding tribes and enticing public officials with bribes, the question of whether Abramoff directed donations just to Republicans, or to the GOP and Democrats, has been central to efforts by both parties to distance themselves from the unfolding scandal. President Bush recently addressed the question on Fox News, saying: 'It seems to me that he [Abramoff] was an equal money dispenser, that he was giving money to people in both political parties.' . . .

"In total, the donations of Abramoff's tribal clients to Democrats dropped by nine percent after they hired him, while their donations to Republicans more than doubled, increasing by 135 percent after they signed him up;

"Five out of seven of Abramoff's tribal clients vastly favored Republican candidates over Democratic ones;

"Four of the seven began giving substantially more to Republicans than Democrats after he took them on;

"Abramoff's clients gave well over twice as much to Republicans than Democrats, while tribes not affiliated with Abramoff gave well over twice as much to Democrats than the GOP -- exactly the reverse pattern."

Which partially prompts Paul Krugman to ask:

"Why does the insistence of some journalists on calling this one-party scandal bipartisan matter? For one thing, the public is led to believe that the Abramoff affair is just Washington business as usual, which it isn't. The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory.

"More important, this kind of misreporting makes the public feel helpless. Voters who are told, falsely, that both parties were drawn into Mr. Abramoff's web are likely to become passive and shrug their shoulders instead of demanding reform."

You wait -- someone will interpret this as bad for Hillary:

"It's starting to look as if Geena Davis will be a one-term President," says People , reporting that "Commander-in-Chief" is going on hiatus in March.

LAT blogger Michael Hiltzik wonders why conservative bloggers are ignoring a big story:

"While the absolute chaos associated with the Medicare drug program's rollout has made the front pages of newspapers across the country, inspiring governors of more than two dozen states to undertake emergency action, the right-wing blogosphere has scarcely printed one word about the program. Thousands, possibly millions of American citizens have been hurt, many of them in life-threatening ways. Patients, doctors, and pharmacists are outraged. State governments are committing tens of millions of dollars to bail out the feds.

"Yet, from the right: Silence . . .

"As a classic welfare/entitlement program with its cultural roots in the New Deal, Medicare has hardly been the apple of the right's eye. Indeed, the epic and humiliating arm-twisting that was needed to get the drug program passed by the GOP-controlled House in 2003 amply demonstrates that conservatives were uneasy about this program from the start. Nor was the right blogosphere so shy about commenting on the Katrina disaster.

"But there, I think, lies the key. As incompetent as FEMA was on that occasion, a handful of Democratic office-holders were skulking conveniently nearby to absorb some of the blame -- or, if you believe the right, ALL the blame.

"But no Mayor Nagin or Gov. Blanco is available as a target for finger-pointing here. Bush demanded the program, a Republican Congress passed it over Democratic objections, and a Medicare bureaucracy eviscerated by the Bush White House put it into action. Like the Abramoff thing, this is a Republican scandal down to its bones."

I mentioned the other day a forthcoming book by Daily Kos man Markos Moulitsas and picked up from the Washington Monthly that he periodically chats up Democratic leaders. Well, the magazine's Benjamin Wallace-Wells has posted a lengthy correction online that includes this:

"My story states that Moulitsas speaks frequently and regularly with DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. In fact, he speaks regularly with their staffs, never with Emanuel, and only very occasionally with Reid."

Jack Shafer doesn't think much of Ted Koppel's "self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, late-to-the-party, and punishingly obvious 1,500-word piece about the state of television news" in his NYT debut. I didn't think it was bad, myself. How else would we have known that Koppel has an unfinished novel?

Shafer's substantive critique: "When Koppel laments the fact that cable, satellite, and broadband have 'overcrowded' the marketplace, making it 'increasingly vulnerable to the dictatorship of the demographic' -- that is, readers and viewers deciding what they want to consume rather than what the three broadcast networks think they should -- he sounds like any other monopolist complaining about how the arrival of competition has dragged down quality."

The new Wonkette has debuted--um, a work in progress--but what's with the same caricature of a gal when the blog is now written by two guys?

Finally, here's the day's most interesting feature, on my former Post colleague Martha Sherrill giving up a big advance to write a memoir of her father -- because of a secret that emerged which she won't reveal -- and turning it into a novel instead. Kind of the anti-James Frye, but without the Oprah appearance.