Monday, August 13, 2007

Once again, reality bites: Kate McMillan edition.


The ever-so-perky, infinitely gullible Ms. McMillan from a couple weeks ago:

I Hope You're Sitting Down

"A War We Just Might Win"

And the inevitable towel snap of reality:

In their now infamous New York Times op-ed, Brookings analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack wrote that “[w]e are finally getting somewhere” in Iraq, based on their eight day trip to the war-torn country...

But in a recent interview, Glenn Greenwald elicits the inner details of the trip from O’Hanlon, confirming “rather conclusively what a fraud this Op-Ed was, and even more so, the deceitfulness of the intense news coverage it generated.” Some key points from the interview:

  • O’Hanlon admits he is a war supporter: “As you rightly reported,” O’Hanlon told Greenwald, “I was not a critic of this war. In the final analysis, I was a supporter.”

  • A rushed, cherry-picked trip: O’Hanlon admitted that they spent approximately “between 2-4 hours” in every area they visited outside Baghdad, “and much of that was taken up meeting U.S. military commanders, not inspecting the proverbial ‘conditions on the ground.’” “They spent every night ensconced in the Green Zone in Baghdad,” adds Greenwald.

  • Pentagon “choreographed” the trip: In the op-ed, the analysts boast, “We just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel.” But O’Hanlon admitted: “The predominant majority were people who we came into contact with through the itinerary the D.O.D. developed. … For the most part, the conversations were ones arranged by D.O.D”

  • Unrepresentative view of Iraq: “If someone wanted to argue that we were not getting a representative view of Iraqis because the ones we spoke with were provided by the military, I would agree that this would be a genuine concern,” said O’Hanlon. “By no means did all of the Iraqis agree with the view of progress in Iraq.”


Poor Kate -- 0 for 740. It occurs to me that, if her slavishly loyal, leg-humping readers ever developed an interest in, you know, credibility and facts and stuff like that, she'd be in a truckload of trouble.

Lucky for her, eh?

BONUS AFTERSNARK: Ooh, ooh ... she noticed me! Sort of ...

I don't usually bother with liberal left bloggers who waste their time slagging me. (Too many, for one thing.)

Hunh. Personally, I would have written, "Too embarrassingly accurate, for one thing." To each his own, I guess.

But I can appreciate your reluctance in addressing your critics, Kate. I'm pretty sure that, if we stacked your record for distortion, misrepresentation and dishonesty up against mine, one of us would be in a world of hurt. And I'm fairly sure I know which of us that would be.

1 comment:

900ft Jesus said...

sorry, cc, that was me, as I'm sure you know. Seriously, the link in the original article lead to that damn dino pic!

But like one person who commented said, the bashing comments mostly help prove what lefties are saying about some of them.