More Of The Same--From The Press

Jonah Goldberg writes that even after President Bush’s victory at the polls, he gets the same treatment from the press–that he can do nothing right, even when he does exactly what they’ve been carping for:

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This has been a constant theme of the last four years. When Bush was allegedly acting unilaterally (Iraq), he was denounced for not being multilateral. When he was multilateral (North Korea), he was denounced for not being unilateral. When Europeans are excluded, that’s bad (again, allegedly Iraq); when Europeans are allowed to take the lead (Iran), that’s bad, too. When Bush “outsourced” the war in Afghanistan by using non-American troops, that was a monumental mistake, according to Kerry and others. When we didn’t outsource the war in Iraq, that was a monumental mistake as well. And so on.

To understand the president’s Catch-22 with his critics, consider his latest move as he prepares for his second term–shaking up the Central Intelligence Agency. Ever since 9/11 a cacophonic chorus has been calling for shake-ups at the CIA. “Why hasn’t anyone been fired?” demanded everyone from the New York Times and the Democratic Party to the so-called 9/11 families. The 9/11 commission demanded a huge shake-up not only of our intelligence bureaucracy but of the way we think about national security more broadly.

Well, the administration is attempting to do that. Porter Goss, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a one-time CIA operative himself, is shaking things up.

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Read the rest.

In sharp contrast to how the press has portrayed the last four years, check out Colin Powell’s final message to the State Department: not too bad a first term for the president.

Of course, one positive byproduct of the press’s treatment of the president, particularly during this past year, is that it’s made legacy media bias impossible for the left to dispute, without looking very silly in the process.

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