Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

The acutely aware may have already seen this Tom Tomorrow cartoon celebrating the 4th anniversary of, “Mission Accomplished” Day.

He attaches the following highly ironic quote from long-blindered/much-syndicated conservative columnist, Cal Thomas:
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“When the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe escaped from the shackles of communism, I wrote that we must not forget the enablers, apologists and other “fellow travelers” who helped sustain communism’s grip on a sizable portion of humanity for much of the 20th century. I suggested that a “cultural war crimes tribunal” be convened, at which people from academia, the media, government and the clergy who were wrong in their assessment of communism would be forced to confront their mistakes. While not wishing to deprive anyone of his or her right to be wrong, it wouldn’t hurt for these people to be held accountable.

That advice was not taken – but today we are presented with another opportunity in the form of scores of false media prophets who predicted disaster should the U.S. military confront and seek to oust the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. The purpose of a cultural war crimes tribunal would be to remind the public of journalism’s many mistakes, as well as the errors of certain politicians and retired generals, and allow it to properly judge their words the next time they feel the urge to prophesy…

All of the printed and voiced prophecies should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent.”
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There are at least two remarkable aspects of the pre-war media punditry.

One: The vast majority of the regular pundit have been proven not just wrong, but deliriously wrong. So wrong the proverbial room full of monkeys would have produced a higher success rate than … the pundits allowed to offer comment on network and cable television. (Forget about talk radio, which at least is unabashed in its unwavering commitment to wrongheadedness.)

As Bill Moyers reminded us last week, the choice of “expert” pre-war punditry was heavily influenced by networks — and newspapers — tilting coverage to remain in step with perceived popular opinion, thereby avoiding charges of unpatriotism, which to nervous “objective” editors is a little like being accused of pedophilia, that is to say, an accusation from which you never fully recover.

Two: Virtually all of the worst offenders, the “experts” now proven so completely, ghastly wrong — the kind wrong that would get a standard beat reporter reassigned to the loading dock — continue to gas on as though nothing has changed and their expertise hasn’t been proven not just faulty but, on many levels, corrupt.

More to the point, no real attempt has been made to rotate in pundits who accurately predicted the catastrophe we see before us today. None of the cast of, for example, “The Nation”, contribute any more frequently than they did before the war. And voices who have established their bona-fides since May 1, 2003 — people like Glen Greenwald, Eric Alterman, Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong — are largely unknown even to the better-than-average informed because of their absence from the standard punditry chairs on the “Hardballs” and “Scarborough Countries” of the world, much less the Sunday morning DC chat shows and “Nightline.”

With audience levels off 30-40% and more for your average Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio act, compared to 5/1/03, and Bush’s job approval pretty much resting on the marrow of the country’s most reactionary and implacable conservatives, common business sense would tell you that unless you are in the business of just nakedly cooking “facts”, like Fox News, time and events have evolved an audience interested in something both new … and a hell of a lot smarter and more intuitive than the same discredited cast of characters of yore.

As a “Mission Accomplished” Day kicker, here is a little bitter dessert, thanks to Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher.