The Washington Post's Pathetic Lies

In a powerful piece in today's Consortium News, Robert Parry tears the latest lies and distortions of the Washington Post's editorial board to shreds. Some of you out there might still think that the Post is some kind of liberal icon, but it isn't. This isn' the Watergate era Post. This is the Bush apologist Post, the Neocon loving Post, the Post that helped lead our country into its disastrous misadventure in Iraq. The WAPO editorial board has long been dominated by disgusting cheerleaders for Bush and Cheney. The board's members miss no opportunity to attack and smear anti-war critics. Parry's key points:

More than three years into the Iraq War, the Post’s top news executives remain steadfast defenders of Washington’s neoconservatives who pushed the dangerous doctrine that military invasion was the way to “democratize” Muslim countries in the Middle East. In 2002-2003, the Post’s senior editors cast Iraq War skeptics out of the polite opinion-page society – and are still at it.

After last week’s House debate on Iraq, here is how the lead Post editorial treated Bush’s critics for favoring a prompt U.S. military withdrawal:

“Many Democrats, looking to exploit bad news without appearing to rejoice in it, demagogued about presidential ‘lies,’ obtusely denied any relationship between Iraq and the war on terrorism and called for troop withdrawal without honestly facing the consequences of such a move.” [Washington Post, June 17, 2006]

If you parse the Post’s comment, you would have to conclude that Democratic war critics are truly despicable and crazy people. They eagerly exploit the “bad news” deaths and maiming of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, while concealing a private joy over this mayhem for crass political reasons.

Parry is more polite than I am about these things. I scour the liberal/Democratic/Progressive blogosphere every single day. I have found NO "rejoicing", overt or covert, about U.S. losses, on ANY of them. Those of us on the Center/Left mourn, with genuine grief, every American casualty of Bush's insane, tragic, needless war. To imply that those of us on this side of the fence are happy to see our wonderful young men and women killed or injured is a fucking lie. And for the Post's editorialists to contend that there is some kind of actual relationship between the war against terrorism and the War in Iraq is so appallingly dishonest that it should discredit the Post permanently.

The Post has drunk the Bush Kool Aid completely. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it asserts that no one in the Bush Administration lied about anything related to the motives for the war. Read Parry's article, and then you'll do what I did when thinking about the WAPO's lies, slander, and Bush propaganda:

You'll call bullshit.