opinion by Norman Solomon

MEDIA'S WAR BOOSTERS UNLIKELY TO VOICE REGRET

The superstar columnistGeorge Will has an impressive vocabulary. Too bad it doesn't include thewords "I'm sorry."

A year ago, Will led the media charge when amember of Congress dared to say that President Bush would try to deceivethe public about Iraq. By now, of course, strong evidence has piled upthat Bush tried and succeeded.

But back in late September, whena media frenzy erupted about Representative Jim McDermott's liveappearance from Baghdad on ABC's This Week program, what riled thepunditocracy as much as anything else was McDermott's last statementduring the interview: "I think the president would mislead the Americanpeople."

First to wave a media dagger at the miscreant wasWill, a regular on the ABC television show. Within minutes, on the air,he denounced "the most disgraceful performance abroad by an Americanofficial in my lifetime." But the syndicated columnist was just gettingstarted.

Back at his computer, George Will churned out a piecethat appeared in the Washington Post two days later, ripping intoMcDermott and a colleague on the trip, Representative David Bonior."Saddam Hussein finds American collaborators among senior congressionalDemocrats," Will wrote.

There was special venom for McDermottin the column. Will could not abide the spectacle of a Congresspersoncasting doubt on George W.

Bush's utter veracity. "McDermott'saccusation that the president--presumably with Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld,Rice and others as accomplices--would use deceit to satisfy his cravingto send young Americans into an unnecessary war is aslander."

During early October, the national media echo chamberkept rocking with countless reprises of Will's bugle call. One of themain reasons for the furor was widespread media denial that "thepresident would mislead the American people."

An editorial inthe Rocky Mountain News fumed that "some of McDermott's words, deliveredvia TV, were nothing short of outrageous."

In Georgia, theAugusta Chronicle declared: "For a US congressman to virtually accusethe president of lying while standing on foreign soil--especially thesoil of a nation that seeks to destroy his nation and even tried toassassinate a former US president--is an appallingly unpatrioticact."

Nationally, on the Fox News Channel, the one-man bombastfactory Bill O'Reilly accused McDermott of "giving aid and comfort toSaddam while he was in Baghdad." O'Reilly said that thousands of hisviewers "want to know why McDermott would give propaganda material to akiller and accuse President Bush of being a liar in the capital city ofthe enemy."

A syndicated column by hyper-moralist Cal Thomasfollowed with similar indignation: "We have seen Reps. Jim McDermott ofWashington and David Bonior of Michigan--the Bozos of Baghdad--accusePresident Bush of lying for political gain about Iraq's threat tocivilization."

But such attacks did not come only fromright-wing media stalwarts. Plenty of middle-road journalists were happyto go the way of the blowing wind.

During one of her routineappearances on Fox television, National Public Radio politicalcorrespondent Mara Liasson commented on McDermott and Bonior: "Theseguys are a disgrace. Look, everybody knows it's 101, politics 101, thatyou don't go to an adversary country, an enemy country, and badmouth theUnited States, its policies and the president of the United States. Imean, these guys ought to, I don't know, resign."

Now that it'sevident the president of the United States not only "would" mislead theAmerican people but actually did--with the result of a horrendouswar--it's time to ask when such pundits, who went after McDermott with avengeance last fall, might publicly concede that he made a valid andcrucial point.

To use George Will's inadvertently apt words, itwas prescient to foresee that "the president--presumably with Cheney,Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice and others as accomplices--would use deceit tosatisfy his craving to send young Americans into an unnecessarywar."

Much more importantly, if a mainstream politicaljournalist like Mara Liasson was so quick to suggest ten months ago thatMcDermott resign for inopportunely seeking to prevent a war, when willshe advocate that the president resign for dishonestly promoting a war--or, failing resignation, face impeachment?

Norman Solomonis co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." Foran excerpt and other information, go to:www.contextbooks.com/new.html#target