"How do you know that the run-up to war in Syria is eerily similar to the run-up to the Iraq War? Liberal journalists keep reminding you of the many ways in which they claim it is not," conservative Mediaite writer Noah Rothman noted at the open of his excellent August 30 piece, "As Expected, Liberal Reporters Mock Bush’s 48-State Coalition to Absolve Obama of Failure Abroad."
Rothman first turned his focus to today's edition of MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner, a daily resource for Obama administration puffery and hackneyed liberal talking point generation. The Mediaite editor found the program's panelists twisting themselves into a pretzel to explain how President Obama's poise to truly "go it alone" on Syria is more defensible than President Bush's 48-nation "coalition of the willing" in Iraq:
New York Times reporter Annie Lowrey engaged in the unforgivable offense on Friday of giving voice to the empirical fact that the White House will be practically “doing this alone.” She said that, more than two years into the civil war in Syria, one year after Obama established a “red line,” and three months after his administration confirmed that red line had been crossed, they “didn’t even lay the groundwork” to assemble an international coalition which would participate in the intervention.
This undeniable failure on the part of the Obama administration, having been acknowledged, could not stand without pushback. The unfavorable comparison of Obama to Bush must be invalidated – any defender of a frail and crumbling worldview would do the same. Enter, Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein.
“Let’s not overplay the coalition of the willing,” Stein interrupted. “He was trumpeting up Poland as like the big member — this is George W. Bush trumpeting up Poland — that was never a major coalition and it’s not going to be now.”
This was not so much analysis as a flailing effort to derail and redirect the conversation away from its natural course — criticism of the president.
Okay, but that's just MSDNC, you might say. Well, CNN was in on the fun to, bringing in Time's Jay Newton-Small:
Stein was not alone. TIME Magazine’s Jay Newton-Small penned a post for that magazine making the case for why “Syria 2013 Isn’t Iraq 2003.” In an interview on CNN, she mocked the Micronesian nations who served in a support capacity in Iraq. She added that Australia, France, and Turkey lend “legitimacy” to the mission to the mission in Syria in a way that Bush’s coalition did not.
Rothman then went on to further dissect the illogic of the liberal media as they desperately seek to puff up President Obama even as his weakness on foreign policy is painfully evident. Do yourself a favor and read Rothman's full piece here.
