The front page of this morning’s New York Times “Week in Review” has two (!) articles that are more or less sympathetic to democracy in Iraq — “Suddenly It’s ‘America Who?’” by Dexter Filkins and “Democracy Has to Start Somewhere” by Michael Wines. The paper hasn’t exactly morphed into the Weekly Standard, but movement is occurring. How long this will continue I don’t know, but the fear of humiliation is a powerful motivator. And the MSM, especially its crown jewel the NYT, has been humiliated and the reason is clear. They, like so many others, abandoned their anti-fascist principles in favor of anti-Bush.
Roger,
We could be witnessing a tipping point. See my comment in the thread below on the letter from Iran. This is all related.
Link Here
Roger
I hope you’re right.
Before about early 2002, when I began to sense they were going off the rails, the NYT had always been my favorite paper. Since then, I have only been able to stomach the science section, and a few articles forwarded to me by Nina or some friend. And of course editorials by Safire (whom I didn’t especially like in my lefty days).
Anyway, if they even became more nearly objective — forget about any movement toward the center — I would be pleased.
Jamie Irons
Oh, and New England by seventeen points.
Jamie Irons
Fair enough, but the front page of the NY Times has a headline announcing the coming theocracy in Iraq. This is the new theme (Iraq will be another Iran!), following on the failed theme of Iraqi Election Disaster. Now it’s Iraqi Shiite Clerics Taking Control Disaster.
Still good to see some movement back in the editorial pages though.
And you bet they’re watching Eason’s comments and what will happen to him.
I think we’re beginning to reach a tipping point.
’06 election coverage could be very interesting.
Sorry, I didn’t read the 1st comment!!!
Peter G:
Well they are the largest voting block. But I know what you mean. I think it is intersting that the same kind of folks that say this is a war against Islam seem to be the ones who are most afraid of it. If one follows that logic then I guess Saddam is your man.
I have heard the same thing from Dems in the last few days.
That and the Viet Namese election of 1967..quagmire…Mission Accomplished…quagmire…
Unless and until Baghdad is the Paris of the ME a lot of these guys won’t admit they were wrong.
What’s most significant to me–now that I have bathed in the glory of the Iraqi election for a solid week–is how important it is for a people to “earn” their freedom. Iraqis really own their country now and their own well deserved pride in the election. No one gave it to them; they faced death and evil and won.
OTOH we waited until Germany was really, really ready after WWII, and the German people still haven’t recovered from the guilt and humiliation of enabling a Hitler and needing the Americans to save them. Terrorists like Baader-Meinhof and the Italian Red Brigades sprung up later in reaction to I think this psychological dependency and Oedipal rage.
So maybe in the future when we “liberate” someone, we should remember to step aside sooner rather than later, and let the boy become the man on his own terms.
The articles in the Times may be backing off a little on the overt spin, but Filkins is pulling an awfully weary and mendacious journalist trick. By simply declaring that until last week, “America” the first word in a litany of complaints that formed the whole body of Iraqi opinion, he projects his biased views through invented Iraqi voices and calls it news.
If there had been no alternates to the NYT in learning about local conditions in Iraq over the last two years, we’d still be successfully bamboozled by such rubbish. Sorry Dexter, through blogs we’ve been better informed by US military and Iraqi voices both. Take a vacation and clear your ears to hear out both sides.
Fascinating: the NY Times may well be imitating the Wall Street Journal, only in reverse. The WSJ’s editorial pages are very consistently, often stridently, right-of-center, while its political and even business reporting is usually centrist and often left of center.
Perhaps the Times will find its voice in similar fashion, with a stridently left-of-center OpEd page offset by increasingly centrist, non-leftist reporting. It would seem to be an excellent business formula: retain (and expand slightly) your hardcore partisans with that old-time religion on the opinion pages, and broaden your appeal to a much larger audience with centrist, balanced, straight-up news reporting.
Um, let’s make that “the London of the Middle East.” The way French demographics are going, Paris is going to be the Paris of the Middle East.
Actually, that was a good moment around here.
My husband took one look at that picture, and said he loathes ayatollahs, any and all ayatollahs, has loathed them ever since the Iranian revolution, feels disgust just looking at pictures of them—–exactly the kinds of illiberal comments you might find me making on any given morning.
There was no undercurrent of, ‘See? Everything’s gonna end up worse, not better,’ either.
So I’m down with the Shiites-in-office article.
The Filkins op-ed was also terrifically conducive to marital peace & quiet, because just yesterday I had been making the exact same argument PJ makes above: I had been saying that the Iraqi people, on the day of the vote, had erased the humiliation of having been rescued by America and had established themselves as the heros of their own country’s story. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, the people of Iraq walked onto the world stage and, staring down death, did exactly what the Salafis instructed them not to do.
No one can take that away from them. Ever.
My husband reacted with the silent treatment (ST) followed by a grimace when I for once objected to the ST (which I am becoming inclined to do, I must say. Refusing to acknowledge that your right-wing wife has even spoken does keep the peace, sort of, but it’s rude.)
So next I objected to the grimace, forcing him to actually speak out loud. He said my perception was ridiculous, because it will be YEARS before we’ll know how the elections affected anything in Iraq at all.
Then today we get the WEEK IN REVIEW saying the elections have had a big, fat, effing effect, and it’s possible to know this after just one week!
My husband said cheerfully, “Yeah, you were right.”
All in all a great day with the SUNDAY TIMES!
Speaking of Salafis, I finally got around to reading the TIME Person of the Year story on President Bush, which is terrifid—-and discovered that he refers to radical Islam as Salafist Islam.
So I’m replacing insurgent with .
Catherine (plus PJ) :”I had been saying that the Iraqi people, on the day of the vote, had erased the humiliation of having been rescued by America and had established themselves as the heros of their own country’s story.”
Yup – and it makes me wonder whether the nightmare that Iraqis have endured since 4/9/03 hasn’t in some paradoxical sense been essential to what happened on election day? In other words, if it had been a cakewalk, ironically the Iraqis might not have “owned” it (it’s that darned Arab pride thing – which is really quite anathema to us Americans) and also there might have been a much greater chance of them drifting into civil war than I think is now the case, given what they have been through to get to this point.
Catherine:
Have you noticed how all those liberal minded people out there who keep telling the rest of us that a war in Iraq is a war against Islam etc get all excited about the Ayatollahs? I mean I thought it was the right wingers who had the problem with Islam, not all those open minded folks.
I agree, Caroline and Katherine–I think everyone values more something they have to fight for (husbands, advanced degrees, freedom).:)
The Iraqis could not end Saddam’s power any more than the Germans could oust Hitler, but I’m sure they still felt impotent. This also explains why the Iranians keep saying they want our moral support but they want to oust the mullahs themselves.
In Iraq’s case they wrested control from us and made the process their own. Or maybe the Bushies knew this and pushed for elections even under difficult conditions. If so, they are smart, scary smart.
thibaud wrote:
“It would seem to be an excellent business formula: retain (and expand slightly) your hardcore partisans with that old-time religion on the opinion pages, and broaden your appeal to a much larger audience with centrist, balanced, straight-up news reporting.”
Wot a concept! Opinions on the editorial page, and objective news reporting on the news pages!
Who’da thunk it?