File this in your here-we-go-again department. Once again the administration has led everyone (the media, voters, members of Congress) to believe one thing has been asserted and is suddenly shifting the goal posts — in a way as if the original description had never occurred:
In the latest twist to the ongoing saga over the Petraeus White House report, a senior military official tells the Washington Times today that there will actually be no report at all:
A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. “There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them by testimony,†the officer said.
The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus’ opening statement to Congress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use in explaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the past several months.
To recap, first the public was incorrectly led to believe that Gen. David Petraeus would issue his own report about the situation on the ground in Iraq. Then the Los Angeles Times reported that the so-called “Petraeus report†would “actually be written by the White House.â€
Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) then suggested the White House would probably “tweak†the “Petraeus report.†In an effort to put the controversy to rest, Gen. David Petraeus assured lawmakers that the White House was not going to be involved in the “writing†of the report.
Think Progress then notes how then this has been changed.
What’s notable here is that some will say reports such as this try to sandbag the report’s credibility in advance. But if you remember the chronology of how this report was first billed, it’s clear it is a case of the administration either blowing it in p.r. terms or deciding it needed to tightly control the information and final form of the report. Choose your motive according to your political beliefs.
What will happen is now predictable:
(1) Because the administration is changing the rules of the originally laid-out-game as it goes along on this “report,” it is now a totally politicized issue.
(2) People who strongly oppose the war will not believe what Petraeus says. He would have to make a very strong case that holds up to intense scrutiny in the original form as stated. The changed form won’t help his case in preaching to the choir of a different church.
(3) Strong supporters of the war will play defense attorneys for the administration saying that the administration never implied it was really a written report, or find some other way to spin it because they want their (political) sports “team” to win this one.
(4) Those in the middle will feel it is now politicized and perhaps conclude there may be some good points in it (or not), but a lot of it will be suspect so the jury for independents will likely remain largely out depending on how each side “spins” (read that to mean demonizes the other side) this event there could be some movement in independent opinion, up or down.
Just as in the case of how the administration could avoid a lot of domestic headaches if they simply genuinely tried to work to work WITH Democratic critics (Senator Joe Lieberman does not qualify in that department), the changed form from what most felt it would be is not the wisest way to nurture national consensus. That the administration can just keep changing what they led people to believe was going to happen without a real fuss is another case of the strange American political notion that if you officially state something it somehow eradicates the original earlier assertions or strong implications that had been covered in the print, broadcast and internet news media.
And since the White House is still effectively giving half a peace sign to those who do not totally agree with its take on the war (and the President suggesting that his critics are short-sighted, merely political hacks worried about opinion polls and/or essentially cowards who don’t have the guts to stay the course like he does), the report Monday is likely to get tons media coverage but probably will not be the milestone many thought it would be.
Unless the delivered report is stunningly convincing and holds up to questions that are sure to be posed later, it sounds as if this will be one more administration event that in the end pleases the Republican Party’s base — a base that is reportedly shrinking as the GOP loses independent voters and many young people.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.