McClellan Highlights American Media’s ‘War Within a War’

What is the role of the media in a democratic society? In examining the contents of Scott McClellan’s new book, O Globo of Brazil’s chief foreign affairs columnist William Waack writes:

“In light of what has happened since 2003, it’s easy to say today that some examples of the always admired American press (The New York Times, CNN, Newsweek, and others) could have been more critical … But in this debate, it’s just as easy to lose sight of the kind of ‘collective psychological moment’ so detectable in the United States in the months that followed the attacks of September 11. In this very complex field of the relationship between means of communication and the public – in which only those without their thinking caps on would claim is a one-way street – one can also say that today, some of the main organs of the American press mirror rather than mold behavior.”

By William Waack

Translated By Brandi Miller

June 29, 2008

Brazil – O Globo – Original Article (Portuguese)

It’s one thing to accuse the occupants of the White House of mounting a deliberate campaign of disinformation on the path to declaring war in Iraq in 2003. It’s quite another to read the same accusation written by someone who was the spokesperson for the White House until 2006. The book, What Happened, which comes out this week in the United States, is a harsh attack on the President and some of his closest advisers and is written by Scott McClellan, who has worked with Bush since the days when he was governor of Texas.

The most convincing sentence in McClellan’s political memoir is this: “the lack of intellectual honesty helped take our country to war with Iraq.” This isn’t exactly a novelty – and I say this not so much because it’s an argument that has been repeated so often. The use of faulty information provided by the secret services is as old as the existence of such services. But for the occupants of the White House under Bush, according to McClellan, the attitude that led to error – and to the use of deception – was the “self delusion” that he believes is one of Bush’s strongest characteristics.

The ex-spokesman is also very critical of the American press, or at least the sectors that cover the day-to-day world of government in Washington (all capitals that live only on politics, such as Washington, Brasília or, some time ago, Bonn, create peculiar ties between journalists and power). The media, states McClellan, made the “propaganda” work easier to the point of complicity – for a White House which had always been prone to “conceal and become secretive rather than (showing) honesty and transparency,” he writes.

In fact in terms of the role of some sectors of the American press, there was a war within a war in the moments that preceded the disastrous invasion of Iraq. In light of what has happened since 2003, it’s easy to say today that some examples of the always admired American press (The New York Times, CNN, Newsweek, and others) could have been more critical or could have more vehemently expressed criticism about how the Iraqi campaign was conducted.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the McClellan affair.