If You Were An Iraq War Critic, You're Probably Not Being Asked To Go On TV

If You Were An Iraq War Critic, You're Probably Not Being Asked To Go On TV
Posted: 06/27/2014 12:00 am EDT Updated: 06/27/2014 12:59 am EDT
Sam Stein, Michael Calderone




WASHINGTON -- Kent Conrad’s phone hasn’t been ringing very much over the past few weeks, as Iraq, and the debate over America's future in the country, has once again dominated the news.

The architects of the Iraq war are back in TV studios and on op-ed pages, as are journalists and pundits who promoted the Bush administration’s ultimately bogus case for invading. But Conrad, a former senator who was one of only 23 to vote against authorizing the war in October 2002, hasn’t heard from CNN, MSNBC or any other TV outlet. "Not once," he said, when asked if anyone in the press had reached out regarding the current crisis in Iraq.

In an email to The Huffington Post, Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, offered two possible explanations. The first, he said, is “simply the incompetence of the media.” The second is "the shrillness of those trying desperately to rewrite history to cover their own devastating failures."

Despite catastrophic misjudgments -- that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators, that the war would pay for itself with oil revenues -- the Iraq war boosters keep getting booked, while those politicians and journalists who were skeptical of the Bush administration's “slam dunk” case for war remain largely on the sidelines.

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According to liberal watchdog Media Matters, Cheney, Wolfowitz, former presidential envoy to Iraq Paul Bremer and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol have made 16 TV appearances in less than two weeks.

“The analogy I'd draw is the following: You go to a doctor, who diagnoses an ailment and proscribes drugs and surgery,” Landay said. “The diagnosis, however, turns out to be disastrously wrong and as a result, the drugs and surgery leave you crippled for years to come. Are you going to go back to that same doctor to diagnose your next illness? No, you aren't. In fact, you probably sued him/her for malpractice after the first go-round. Unfortunately, we can't sue Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Feith and the others for malpractice. But we can stop listening to them.”


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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/27/iraq-war-critics-tv-bookers_n_5534549.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013&ir=Politics