For a long time I have neglected to watch the news and read it only piecewise. Most of my aversion has been the endless horrible stories coming out of the war in Iraq. Unlike many, I always opposed going to war in Iraq. Though this position is now held by a majority of Americans, not too long ago it was compared to treason. My reservations about the invasion did not come from a generalized opposition to war but a lack of understanding as to our intentions. Dismissing my current news diet I have always been somewhat of a journalism junkie. But in spite all my efforts to keep up with current events I never understood why we invaded in the first place.
There were no weapons of mass destruction. I was never convinced there were because there was never any adequate evidence supporting the claim. If anything there were strident efforts to keep U.N. weapons inspectors from completing their job and a preference for selective conclusions about Iraq rather than a hunt for verifiable information. The support for a timetable of withdrawal is fashionable now and carries little political risk but for people like me it is met with a collective ‘duh’ sound. We shouldn’t have gone into a country without a plan to manage the “peace.” We should never invade without an exit strategy and we should never commit troops to a vague and unspecified cause. A “war against terror” is a subjective struggle against an emotional state and not a winnable objective of conflict.
The idea that we should get out of Iraq is only reinforced by story after story of soldiers dieing in increasing numbers. It is one thing to consider the war effort in detached terms of state relations. It is another thing entirely to consider the kid from Iowa announced as fallen on the nightly news juxtaposed to flimsy explanations as to what he died for. This is the reason the Pentagon refuses to have cameras covering the coffins returning from war and why reports of abuse and neglect at Walter Reed have been largely suppressed. It’s harder to support a reasonless war if it ever becomes personal.
Having concluded long ago we did not have sufficient justification to go into war I glean little more than depression from watching the disaster now. Having the news tell me over and over again that our soldiers are now dieing in another country’s sectarian civil war does not provide me with new information but rather greater and greater frustration. We’re done now and tiptoeing toward withdrawal only delays the necessary and inevitable.
So I subconsciously wished the news would just stop talking about Iraq. There was no need to read about another helicopter down or mass casualties from a bomb going off in a crowded market. Not only are my conclusions about our business over there set but I have always been more interested in domestic policy than foreign relations.
After the Democrats’ victory in November I had really hoped some domestic issues that had received no daylight in the GOP controlled government would finally get some attention. But the focus still remains largely and almost solely on Iraq. It isn’t that I don’t care about war. It’s that I seek information on other topics too. You would think then that I was pleased when the news took a respite from non-stop Iraq coverage. Instead I am reminded to be careful what I wish for.
Two weeks ago I was excited to visit a friend's house with cable. She’s a fellow politico and I don’t get cable at my house so I looked forward to the prospect of watching The Situation Room and Hardball. I was disappointed – to say the least – to find out that Anna Nicole Smith had died that day. Instead of covering domestic affairs, even the supposedly hard news outlets who regularly focus on politics were obsessively covering this woman’s death and struggling to come up with anything to say.
Who cares about Anna Nicole Smith? Apparently too many people do. She didn’t do anything with her life but provide a tragic spectacle pathetic people wallow in to make themselves feel less pathetic. It’s interesting, in a way, to consider an elderly tycoon trying to sleep with his twenty-something bride. It’s fascinating, I guess, to see a former playmate balloon to blimpish proportions. And it’s entertaining, somewhat, to see her weight crash on uppers for which she slurs out endorsements. But Anna didn’t gain fame through talent or skill or leadership. She was a train-wreck that just kept wrecking and then she died – poor thing.
The non-stop Anna Nicole Smith coverage was only interrupted by the poopy-pants astronaut. A woman obsessed with the love of another astronaut drove halfway across the country in adult diapers so she wouldn’t have to stop and use the restroom. She attacked and tried to kidnap a romantic rival and it’s all very sordid and tawdry. We eat it up.
Thankfully the news shows this week went back to covering actual news of import. The world was shaken to its core just days ago when Britney Spears shaved her head bald. One might think reporters would run out of things to say about a celebrity shaving her head. Unfortunately for us news shows can generate endless hours of material from a former child star growing up to be rather screwed up.
If I were a conspiracy theorist I would think that Britney was an agent of the Bush administration. I would also conclude that some Bush henchman murdered poor Anna and sent the astronaut on her diapered mission. These stories sucking the oxygen from more serious news have been blessings for the Bush administration. No matter how little I want to hear about the disaster of Iraq the White House wants it told less. They also want convenient distractions from the real life drama in the Scooter Libby trial.
While all these items of national unimport were given preferential status by the news network, the Libby trial has the power to actually impact the lives of Americans. The length of Britney Spears hair will never affect you and the object of an astronaut’s passions will not make your life better or worse. But our ability as a society to question a president during the lead up to a war is vital and should attract more attention than a thin-fat-thin drunk model.
Like I said, I never understood why we went to war in the first place. The evidence just wasn’t there. I wasn’t alone in pointing this out then or now. There were people, powerful people, who called into question the reasons for escalating the conflict. And those people were vilified and attacked mercilessly. They lost their jobs and their reputations. One covert CIA agent had her identity leaked to the press as retribution for her husband having questioned the Bush administration. A wife’s career ended and life put in jeopardy because her husband uttered dissent.
The Iraq war is important news. But the catastrophe now is not as important as the lead up then. Had reporters done their job there would have been harder questions for the President. There could have and should have been a higher burden of proof. Journalism provides a necessary fourth branch of checks and balances and it abdicated its duties prior to going to war.
Though the press is slightly harder on Bush now that he is unpopular and public opinion has changed about the war they are still not providing the service they should. The Libby trial should be covered and explained and its importance should be made clear to the American public. Good journalism involves separating the fundamental from fluff even if the viewing public has expressed an acute preference for fluff. If you put porn and Shakespeare on competing stations in primetime, porn would win in the ratings hands down. But that doesn’t mean Shakespeare does not have value to a citizenry.
My level of interest in the day-to-day disasters of an illegitimate war is minimal. But I recognize it is important to report. We should know why we’re invading another country, what the alternatives are, and who is accountable when things go poorly. The job of the news media is not to take whatever is interesting and make it news. It’s to know what real news is and make that interesting. We are involved in a lost cause in Iraq because an ignorant populace sought displaced revenge and the news media refused to inform them otherwise. Now we are still there because coverage of celebrities distracts from national discussions that need to be had. It is sad that two hundred American soldiers dieing in one day is not as important as the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Sadder still is the fact that those who should know better cannot articulate a difference between the two.
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