Newsweek's Thomas: Over Summer, Mainstream Journalists 'Lurched' Against Iraq War

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On this weekend's Inside Washington, Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas, who maintained that “most...mainstream journalists believed -- close call -- that we had to go to this [Iraq] war,” have “now changed their view. You can feel it shift over the summer." Thomas observed: “You can feel this summer that group, of which I am a card-carrying member, lurch in a different direction in kind of with a hand-wringing sadness, but you can feel it, they're starting to head for the exits, looking for some kind of face-covering diplomatic solution or something, but boy you can feel it happening." Panelist Nina Totenberg of NPR protested that she was against the war in Iraq from the start, charging: “I think most sane people thought really this would make matters worse and it's made matters worse." (Transcript follows)

A transcript of the relevant portion of the August 25 Inside Washington, a half-hour weekly panel show produced by Washington, DC’s ABC affiliate which carries it on Sunday morning after This Week. Before that, it airs at 7pm Saturday on the affiliate’s all-news cable channel, NewsChannel 8, and Friday night at 8:30pm on DC’s PBS station, WETA-TV channel 26:

Evan Thomas, Newsweek: “I was a 'Chicken Hawk' like a lot of people, some of the people on this panel when we got into it. And, you know, most of the mainstream types, mainstream journalists believed -- close call -- that we had to got to this war -- they've now changed their view. You can feel it shift over the summer.”

Nina Totenberg, NPR: “I wasn't there. I wasn't there. And neither was Colby [King].”

Thomas: “But a lot of mainstream journalists at the New York Times, the New Yorker, you know, traditionally liberal places, endorsed this war.”

Gordon Peterson, host: “The Washington Post.”

Thomas: “The Washington Post. You can feel this summer that group, of which I am a card-carrying member, lurch in a different direction in kind of with a hand-wringing sadness, but you can feel it, they're starting to head for the exits, looking for some kind of face-covering diplomatic solution or something, but boy you can feel it happening.”

Peterson: “You were already at the exits, Nina?”

Totenberg: “I was already at the exits at the beginning because it didn't make any sense to me. With all deference, I would suggest that a lot of people sort of hesitatingly went along because they were intimidated as a result of 9/11. And I, I and I think most sane people thought really this would make matters worse and it's made matters worse.”