The Worst Writers in the World, or the Worst Readers?

by Adam Engel
by Adam Engel

How low are the media prepared to sink in order to perpetuate the fiction that "the War in Iraq" is anything but an unprovoked slaughter and absolute betrayal of "our" troops?

I came across this piece written by a man named David Brooks who pretends to write opinions worth paying for in an overpriced, over-sized "newspaper" whose tacit, if unwritten, motto, "all the news we're not afraid to print" would be the only item worth reading in that rag (besides the outright commercial copy which is at least HONESTLY trying to convince you to buy something), if only they weren't so damn AFRAID to print it.

Thus, dear reader, I present to you what is, IN MY OPINION, the sloppiest, most ham-fisted, graceless piece of propaganda pretending to be journalism that I have ever encountered. The unmitigated arrogance in trying to palm this off as something important enough to be printed as an editorial in "the paper of record" is worth the price of the ad-packed sheaf of staid, white-collar Americana alone.

From what I gathered, between guffaws, this David Brooks was trying to defend the BushCo position in Iraq, so maybe he was just testing out some kind of quantum theory of ballyhoo and mishegas, see if the Heisenberg principle might be squeezed for a 700-word mainstream fluff column.

A lie either glitters like gold or smells like a turd, but it can't both glitter and stink at the same time, and whether it glitters or stinks of course depends upon the position of the observer and the instruments used in the experiment (in this case a word-processor, I assume, running a Microsoft product).

Anyway, get this:

"So an Iraqi-U.S. military offensive took back Samarra, and Rumsfeld said yesterday that Samarra is a model for what is about to happen in other towns in Iraq.

I asked Rumsfeld yesterday how decisions like the one to take back Samarra are made. Are Iraqis like Allawi really deciding when and where Americans fight?

He described a decision-making process that has no formal structure, but involves constant consultations, involving State Department types like Ambassador John Negroponte, military types like Gen. George Casey and Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, and a raft of Iraqi officials. It also involves the big Washington honchos like Powell, Rumsfeld and Bush.

It was clear from our conversation (and from the way other administration officials talk about decision-making in Iraq) that the charge that Allawi is a puppet is just absurd. Allawi has the best feel for which Iraqi community or faction has to be catered to on any given day, and how best to reach over and get some Sunni support for the government. Moreover, Rumsfeld says the goal is to give Iraqis the room to make their own decisions: 'The worst thing we can do is smother them.'"

~ David Brooks, NY Times, "Quickening the Tempo in Iraq"

So, according to this Brooks character, and I assume, the NY Times, real investigative reporting is a lot tougher than it looks. There's only one way to get the truth out of an administration under siege: ask them.

"Gee, Mr. President," said young Bob Woodward so many years ago, "I've heard there's been all sorts of immoral goings on over at the Watergate Hotel. Is this true?"

"No. Not at all. If anyone in my administration were to disobey the law, why, I'd take them out to my Father's woodshed and learn 'em to respect the Constitution," said Tricky Dick.

"Gosh, thanks, Mr. President! This would have been an awful mess if you hadn't cleared it all up. I'll go to the office right now and straighten Bradley, Bernstein and the boys out with THE TRUTH!" said a reinvigorated Woodward.

Honestly, I find it unbelievable that even The Times would stoop this low. What's going on? Some kind of collective entropy? Has the mainstream media gone completely over to the forces of darkness? Or do they think we're so punchy by now, what with the relentless flurry of lies, big lies and bigger lies, that we won't know the difference? After all, they told us Bush was "appointed" president; they told us the root of evil lay in Afghanistan, then Iraq, while buttoning their lips to the impossible outrage that there is yet to be a public investigation of the events of 9/11 etc. etc. etc.

Why SHOULD this Brooks guy bother to do anything more than ASK the Wolf if he gobbled up Little Red Riding Hood and her granny? What if the Wolf said, "Yeah, I tore 'em both apart and it was a bloody mess. What are YOU gonna do about it?" What WOULD we do about it? I suppose we should thank "journalists" like David Brooks for sparing us the humiliation of our own desuetude.

October 9, 2004

Adam Engel [send him mail] lives and writes in New York City. His long fiction, Topiary, will be published by Dandelion Books in 2005.

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