Posted on 06/04/2004 9:26:08 PM PDT by Pikamax
National editor, The Washingtonian
Post’s Prowar Editorial Writers Moving to Support John Kerry The Washington Post editorial page has come as close to calling President George Bush a liar without actually using the word.
In its May 28 lead editorial, about prisoner abuse in Iraq, the Post referred to “the sorry record of the Bush administration—and the president’s own refusal to speak the truth about it . . . .”
Not speaking the truth is lying by omission, and suggesting that a president is not telling the truth is harsh. Is the newspaper that has steadfastly supported Bush’s war in Iraq starting to lose faith in the man, the administration, and the war?
The simple answer is no. The Washington Post still believes in the Iraq mission. Those who control the editorial board still believe that attacking Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do. But debates among those who run the editorial and op-ed pages are becoming fierce, and there has been a perceptible shift in tone against President Bush.
Peering into the soul of the newspaper via the editorial board requires the reading of tea leaves and deciphering of public writings.
Editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt followed the May 28 editorial with a bylined column on Memorial Day: “Why Hawks Should Be Angry.” Arrayed around an illustration of a slender Uncle Sam with head hung, the piece called the prisoner abuse “heartbreaking” and administration’s response “insouciant.”
The President could have “embraced” the soldiers who exposed the abuses and could have apologized. “Instead,” Hiatt wrote, “he opted for a Nixonian strategy of damage containment, and a summer of piecemeal disclosures.”
It’s never good for a president when the Post calls him Nixonian. But Hiatt assured me he was not backing away from supporting the war.
“I thought my op-ed made clear that one reason (not the only reason) the prison scandal and the administration’s handling of the prison scandal are distressing is that they make success more difficult in Iraq,” he wrote in an e-mail response to questions. “If I thought success were impossible in Iraq, (a) I would say so and (b) I would find the scandal distressing for other reasons, but not for that reason.”
But the belief that the United States will find “success” in Iraq is coming under plenty of criticism within the editorial board. Every day the group of seven to ten members gathers around a table to discuss the positions of the day, what the paper will say, who will write it.
“Because Iraq involves issues of national security, and life and death,” Hiatt continues, “I think it’s fair to say there’s no issue we consider more seriously, and there’s an intensity to our discussions that probably does not attach to, say, prescription pharmacy discount cards.”
No one would talk on or off the record about the actual debates, but it’s not hard to imagine who draws the lines and on which side they sit. Hiatt and Jackson Diehl, his deputy who specializes in foreign-policy issues, are the hawks; two of the staunch war critics are deputy editor Colbert King, whose Saturday columns have been harshly critical of Bush and the war, and Tom Toles, whose editorial cartoons have depicted a childlike Bush stumbling and bumbling through war and scandal.
Reports from the editorial sanctum depict King railing against the war but Toles letting his pen draw out his positions. Many are silent. Hiatt and one or two others hold sway.
The last time the editorial staff was riven with such emotional debate over a war was during the Vietnam era.
At the start of that war, Post editor J. Russell Wiggins ran both the editorial and the news side. He was prowar, and the editorials reflected his thinking.
Katharine Graham, then publisher of the Post, was much more skeptical of the Vietnam War. She hired Phil Geyelin to write editorials in 1967, and when Wiggins left the paper to become Lyndon Johnson’s ambassador to the United Nations, she split his job in two: Geyelin handled the editorial page; Benjamin Bradlee became executive editor in charge of the newsroom.
Geyelin steered the paper against the war. His editorials in 1969 explaining why the paper turned on the war won a Pulitzer Prize.
Kay Graham, Bradlee, and Geyelin had a close relationship. Bradlee and Geyelin vacationed together. Geyelin was instrumental in convincing Graham to publish the Pentagon Papers. They were passionate about the news and the people of the day.
There are fewer ties binding the current trio at the top. Fred Hiatt, Post publisher Boisfeuillet Jones, and executive editor Leonard Downie are quieter and more bureaucratic. It is hard to say how much influence Bo Jones or chairman Donald Graham exerts on the editorial board. Graham is more distant than his mother and more immersed in the business of the Post Company—now dominated by its Kaplan education group—rather than focusing on the newspaper.
Hiatt reports to Graham rather than to Jones. Graham tries to attend Monday editorial meetings, and he is known to be hawkish on national-security matters. He’s been out of the country and not available for an interview.
“Neither of them has ever dictated to me on what position the page should take,” Hiatt wrote in an e-mail, “but I value input from both of them.”
And though Hiatt says the Post still supports the Iraq mission, there’s no question the Post has backed away from its enthusiastic endorsement of the war. As some of the wheels come off the administration’s reasons for going to war, Post editorials have had to acknowledge and write about the intelligence failures and the abuse of prisoners.
And reading between the lines, deep in the editorials, there are signs the Post is preparing to endorse John Kerry.
“Mr. Kerry on Security,” a May 30 editorial, said Kerry was correct in saying that Bush had mismanaged US alliances and added: “Mr. Kerry is also right to suggest that repairing and reversing the damage probably will require a new president.”
Kerry also said that like Bush, he would stay in Iraq and seek the kind of success the Post seems to support. Which prompted the Post to conclude its editorial this way:
“Mr. Kerry’s argument is that he has a better chance of making it work. It’s not a bold offer to voters—but it’s probably the right one.”
In looking for the nation’s next war president, the Post seems to be getting ready to endorse John Kerry.
Piss on the Post.
Start a newspaper endorsement thread if you can. Keep a tally of as many papers you can of Bush v Kerry endorsements. I bet it wouldnn't even be close. Freepers from all over the country could post their hometown papers choice in one thread up to election day.
WOW, the WPost favors Kerry over Bush!? Oh my God, Bush should just drop out of the race right now!
Forget the editorial page, hasn't the W Post as a whole been pushing Kerry now for several months? And ABB before that...
So, there is a change? For heaven's sake this paper has
been so left they could fall down forever!
The only difference is they are now admitting to it,
which makes them feel honest I guess, but that does not
make it right no matter how they think they are cleaning
up their act. Won't wash with intelligent people!
That's not really a contradiction. Many Rats understand the importance of taking the War on Terror to the enemy, and in trying to reform the Mideast. But that doesn't make them any less eager to get their power back, or any less slimy in the ways they go about it.
Uh oh. The Washington Post is against us. We're finished.
I am so shocked by this news...I may have to go on retreat and get some therapy.
"Moving" to support Kerry? If the Post moves any closer to Kerry they'll actually merge with the presumptive candidate.
Are you deeply saddened?
It's part of the secret strategery.
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