Article or Editorial? Times Talks of Desperate Bush Admin, U.S. 'Mired' in Iraq

Photo of Mark Finkelstein.

As straight news articles go, it was a heck of an editorial that appeared on the front page of yesterday's New York Times. The ostensible subject of Bush to Bolster Abbas and Seek Peace Talks was President Bush's announcement Monday of "a regional peace conference this fall to be led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that would include high-level Arab envoys and their counterparts from Israel and the Palestinian West Bank."

All well and good. But in the course of the article, author Helene Cooper managed to work in these two swipes at the Bush administration:

The planned meeting, the first of its kind in Mr. Bush’s presidency, signals another pivotal shift for an administration that is desperately seeking some kind of foreign policy victory in the volatile Middle East that would draw attention away from the war in Iraq.

But now the United States is mired in Iraq and looking for a way to build good will among Arab allies that have pushed for America to re-engage in Middle East peace talks.

A bit of Googling reveals that author Helene Cooper is also a member of . . . the Times editorial board. Perhaps someone should remind Ms. Cooper that editorials are, at least in theory, confined to the editorial page. Then again, we are talking about the New York Times.

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net


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Mired

Mired (a): Involved in trouble, difficulty, or delay; confounded, perplexed.

Are you saying that Newspapers should not report that the Iraq war is not going well? Should newspapers not report the state of the war in Iraq because it makes the President look bad?

Same thing goes for 'some kind of foreign policy victory in the Middle East' - the truth is that there has been little success in the past few years - Israel and Palestine still dislike each other, right?

I suppose that mentioning the drawing of attention away from Iraq is a little too far. However, that does not excuse Newsbusters' poorly founded rhethoric.

MC3000 is Mired in DEM Media

 Are you saying it's not going well MC?  What do you know? Have you been there or are you relying on the MSM to spoon feed you your thoughts?

The military is doing a great job there but they will not report it.  The young Airmen I deal with ask to go back because they get it. 

 You are blinded by an MSM that is liberal all the way.  You need to check your bias before generalizing the MSM talking point please.

The only thing you should feel when shooting insurgents is the rifle recoil.

 

A50, Things are not going

A50,

Things are not going well in Iraq, I don't need MSM to tell me that.
Get your head out of the sand.

 Watchman And when was

 Watchman

And when was the last time you were there? 

The only thing you should feel when shooting insurgents is the rifle recoil.

 

Airforce...

He wants to believe that things are not going well in spite of what the soldiers themselves are telling us.

 LionKing, they got their

 LionKing, they got their head stuck somewhere else besides the sand.

The only thing you should feel when shooting insurgents is the rifle recoil.

 

You hear the dog and pony

LK,

 

You hear the dog and pony show.

the dog and pony show

so that's what you call your make-believe assertions 

amazing...

Liberals seem to find first-hand accounts as somehow phony. We are talking about one-on-one accounts...not from the newspaper or TV. Then again, why would we expect a liberal to actually know any soldiers.

If conservatives are RIGHT, then liberals must be WRONG.
Thompson/Rice

LK,   I'm not a

LK,

 

I'm not a liberal, I'm a realist.

reality...

So, you are into reality... which variety, Big Brother or Survivor?

I noticed that you were unable to contradict the personal accounts, yet somehow, your media-driven perception seems more real than what a REAL person has to say.