TV punditry

I get so annoyed over the "he said/she said" type of journalism that doesn't uncover what the truth really is. That issue is addressed in an article called "Being a TV Expert Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry". Also addressed (obviously) is the reality of television pundits being given a free pass when they're unmistakably proven wrong. Here's part of what it says:

Watching the nightly news last night was a hair-pulling experience -- even more than normal.

The top story on national TV was the Senate testimony of the top military brass, who basically admitted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had brought on a disaster.

It wasn’t the news that prompted my hair-pulling (who doesn’t know Iraq’s a disaster?) -- but the way it was reported. On NBC News, viewers saw Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testify that he’d “never painted a rosy picture” of Iraq and that he hadn’t been “overly optimistic.” And NBC allowed the claim to go unrebutted.

Somehow NBC couldn’t dig up the quotes of Rumsfeld saying that he doubted the war would last six months (Feb. 7, 2003) or that US troops “would be welcomed” in Iraq (Feb. 20, 2003) or that “we know where [the WMD] are” (March 30, 2003). The quotes were easily dug up by ThinkProgress.

For me, there was something worse than allowing Rumsfeld’s doozy to go unrebutted. It was who NBC News turned to for expert analysis of the testimony: retired General Barry McCaffrey.

You'd think NBC would turn to someone who had warned of what would inevitably take place in Iraq. Oh no. Look at what McCaffrey had said:

...TV “experts” like Gen. McCaffrey, who echoed White House claims of an Iraqi threat and cheered our country into the war, are still on the air. And they never have to say they’re sorry.

On MSNBC two months before the war, McCaffrey warned that Iraq possessed “thousands of gallons of mustard agents, serin, nerve agent VX still in Iraq.”

His prewar commentary left viewers ill-prepared for what would follow a U.S. invasion. Nowadays, he’s no Rumsfeld booster -- but McCaffrey was upbeat when it mattered, weeks before the war: “I just got an update briefing from Secretary Rumsfeld and his team on what’s the aftermath of the fighting. And I was astonished at the complexity and dedication with which they’ve gone about thinking through this: humanitarian aid, find the weapons of mass destruction, protect the population, jump-start an Iraqi free media. So a lot of energy has gone into this.”

During the invasion, McCaffrey crowed, “Thank God for the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle.” Unknown to MSNBC viewers, the General sat on the boards of several military contracting corporations -- including IDT, which pocketed millions for doing God’s work on the Abrams and Bradley.

Last year, McCaffrey was still standing tough on NBC Nightly News, opposing a timetable for withdrawal.

The writer of this article, Jeff Cohen, was a commentator and senior producer of "Donahue" on MSNBC. That show was terminated for political reasons three weeks before the war. Cohen writes the following:

Unlike McCaffrey (and Rumsfeld), I warned over and over on the air that invading Iraq would lead to disaster, a quagmire, and hatred for our country in the Muslim world. I repeatedly questioned the evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat. So did my colleague Phil Donahue, in primetime. We were on the money. And now we’re off the air.

That just isn't right. There's no way you can tell me that it's right.