Tom Brokaw refuses to admit the blundering press coverage of the Iraq War: 'All wars are based on propaganda'.
By John Amato Thursday May 29, 2008 2:30pm
Brian Williams interviews Tom Brokaw to analyze Scott McClellan's charges that the press was not aggressive enough on the Bush administration leading up to the Iraq war and called them "complicit enablers. "You mean us?" said the media.
Williams: Are you confident, taking the coverage in total that the right questions were asked, the right tone was employed and should it be viewed in the context to that time?
Brokaw: It needs to be viewed in the context of that time?
Isn't the media supposed to be the watchdog of our leaders at all times so that lies don't get us into wars and something called the truth is actually being reported?
Brokaw: When the President said we're going to war, that there's a danger of the mushroom cloud, we know that there's been experiments with Iraqi nuclear programs in the past. Honorable people believed he had WMD's...Look, I think all of us would like to go back and ask questions with the benefit of hindsight (Yea, we're just Monday morning quarterbacks now) of what we know now, but a lot of what was going on was unknowable.
Well, he should have watched Bill Moyers special on the media as a refresher course. He then blames Congress too. Yea, they are culpable for their own actions, but NOT for YOUR coverage. Sorry, Americans aren't buying this spin even from a well respected journalist like Tom. It's really sad that he couldn't take a critical eye to himself. The media needs it and I believe only the elder statesmen of the media can say the words to shake them up. Hasn't he witnessed enough of The Chris Matthews effect already? I'll let Glenn Greenwald dissect this at another time. I'm working on further deep analysis of their behavior to bring to you shortly. Apologist jerks---all of them through and through.
C&Ler Karen emailed me and said she lost all respect for Tom after watching this.
I have lost a lot of respect for Tom Brokaw after this interview. His perspective on McClellan's revelations sound like a laundry list of Bushite excuses: Respectable people believed Hussein had WMD; We'd all love to go back in time knowing what we know now; etc. Worst, though, was his casual dismissal of the administration's basing the war on propaganda with, "All wars are based on propaganda."
Saddened,
Karen
I hear your pain, Karen.
Update: And Tom, yes there is propaganda for all wars by all administrations as you say, but aren't you supposed to knock down that spin for the American people? Break through that wall of lies. If not, then WTF is your actual function? <correction to the title of the post>
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Tom Brokejaw has always been a corporate shill. He proved that when he sold out "The Greatest Generation" junk he spewed on America about 15 years ago.
Its no surprise he's trying to paint himself out of a corner.
Pathetic.
All wars are not based on propaganda. Propaganda is used to lead the sheep to supporting the war.
Don't excuse the propaganda or use it as an excuse for your own ignorance and complicity in a criminal war.
He's just said that the media is either too stupid, or too cowardly, to think for itself. No surprise there.
wars do not have to be based on propaganda
the delusional leaders pushing for war are
responsible for their decisions alone. when
an unnecessary war is provoked by one of these
unscrupulous leaders, then they have commited
war crimes that can not be forgiven.
I think I just threw up a little in my mouth...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080530/ap_on_en_mu/people_rice_kiss
Ralph Wiggums: War President.
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com/2008/05/also-greeting-bush-in-phoenix...
Hey, I'm respectable, too, and I've been in the news business almost as long as Brokaw, since 1975. I had tons of questions about why we were rushing into a war, none of them asked by the highest levels of what passes for journalism anymore. If a peon like me can read about all of the evidence that Saddam no longer had WMD, why couldn't they? The press anymore does not care for confrontation of the powerful, even though that's a large part of the job, regardless of what ABC's chief simpleton, Charles Gibson, says.
All of these media dupes should be exiled from America.
The only allegiance any of these frauds have ever shown is to the almighty dollar and their corporate masters who slop it out to their talking head dogs.
boy the roaches are all scurrying for cover under the blaring light...
oh Tom, you wouldn't want to accept culpability and tarnish your own legacy? fear not old friend, you aren't alone. history will not be kind to this president, congress, the supreme court, the media and the american populace in general for the travesty that has been the last eight years...
Buncha GE puppets
Honey, I cheated on you because all husbands cheat. Everything's cool now, right?
This issue that doesn't seem to be getting addressed re: Iraq's having WMD is that it didn't matter if Saddam had them or not. His country was locked down under sanctions and no fly zones. We continually bombed their infrastructure to the point where Iraq could hardly project anything resembling a threat.
This is common sense. You didn't need to be in the CIA or a brain-dead member of Congress to see through the lies being pumped out of the Bush admin.
10, 20 years from now it will be the media who will be judged the hardest for what took place. Scott is right: they enabled this illegal war.
What a lame excuse: The Senate voted for the war. Well, sure they did because the media persecution questioning their patriotism would have threatened their jobs. Not that I excuse them, they certainly let their constituents down. But it's the JOB of the media to ferret out the truth. And if you are too lazy or timid or blind to do that, you have no fucking business being in the business!
"If not, then WTF is your actual function?"
Plutocrap plutocorp frontman, and he's known it for a long, long time...pompous fake-ass gravitass MSMutherfucker.
Sorry, John...hate these self serving lying fucks.
Disgusting. I'll never watch any of these worthless prime time corporate cocksuckers again. The insultingly endless amount of excuses by this so called voice of integrity was a disgrace. Gargling voice Tommy's lame reasoning paralleled the deluge of bullshit that the right wing tried to peddle to us all yesterday. It's official: The MSM was complicit in mass murder.
Fuck you, Brokaw
.
The context of that time...
"Thou shall not ask questions!"
.
McClatchy's Jonathan Landay & Warren Strobel were among the few who got it right in the lead up to the war (McClatchy was still Knight Ridder).
Wrong on Iraq? Not Everyone
Four in the mainstream media who got it right
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2847
They tore Charlie Gibson Brian Williams up yesterday after they basically said the same thing as Brokaw ...
They were either lazy or they feared being called "unpatriotic". Good news people should never be either of those things.
Shorter:
"I was ignorant."
"Everyone was ignorant."
"Ignorance can't be fixed."
"The White House has total power over me."
"We are not responsible for what we do."
"I can in no way be blamed for my actions."
If I remember correctly, didn't Brokaw laugh at or directly question the patriotism of peace activists early on, maybe at the start of the war?
Just now losing respect for Tom Blowhard? Wow, where has Karen been. Blowhard
has never had my respect..just one of the elite, corporate media assholes.
Just take your fucking medicine, you sorry sack-of-shit apologist.
Fuck you Tommy you sack of crap.
I would prefer Laurel and Hardy doing this discussion. Stan and Ollie were clearly smarter, more informed about life in general, and they did not pretend their work wasn't meant for a laugh.
The idea of the parasites that are newsies defending their complicity in this is not funny. The way they ignore reality and try to protect their lack of honor, is.
Here we are again, I'm a broken record singing one tune.
This is what we have:
Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations… and their buddies.
These corporate media henchmen are not journalists. They are to journalism what Marcus Welby was to the medical profession. They play act as a journalist on TV. If they were real, they would have said this:
The 'war' in Iraq is a swindle by the Military-Industrial-Media complex.
Seems to me the proof, if any more was needed, that Iraq did not have WMD is that if it had had WMD, Israel, whose intelligence about such things is very good, would have taken them (the WMD) out.
In any event, Brokaw demonstrates he's a useless human being just about every time he opens his mouth. Someone who knows and cares for him a lot should try to convince him to STFU.
And here's the clincher: Every single non-trivial factual assertion in Colin Powell's address to the security council was false -- and was reported to be false in the European press within two or three days. For example, British and French reporters went to the "terrorist training facility" he referred to, where Saddam was supposedly training al Qaeda in the use of poison gas, and found that a) it was in Kurdistan, protected from Saddam by the British no-fly zone and b) it consisted of a few decrepit, abandoned shacks with no electricity or water.
This was reported in all the British newspapers and on the BBC. It was not reported in the United States.
Mullah Krekar, the leader of Ansar al Islam, the "al Qaeda" group that Powell claimed was allied with Saddam, was at that time enjoying political asylum in Norway because Saddam was trying to kill him. That was not difficult to find out either, I would say.
And on and on. All they had to do was check out the BBC web site.
media talking about media... circle jerk, anyone?
didn't brokaw write a book about the iraq war? anybody that would make money off of this war based on lies is the lowest piece of shit ever. fuck that fraud brokaw.
It has been said better many many times but the reason they do not think they are at fault is because they reported exactly what the President, Vice-President, Secretary of Defense, Security adviser, Director of the CIA, Secretary of State, and all the Deputy Secretary's, and the White House Press Secretary said word for word. They just didn't have enough time during the 24hour news cycle to interview only but one or two descending voices. Those descending voices were treated like they were the ones that were saying the earth is flat, and we are the center of the universe. It was just Un-American to say anything against the Administration, besides if you did you might lose access to all the great parties and barbeque's.
....LOTS of people gave this administration a pass....beacuse ultimately people trusted that they would not be lied to about something so serious, and in such a manipulative way (freedom fries, lapel pins, "with us or agin us" crap, etc)....what people have lost is faith in government that is very hard to restore. Quite frankly, this goes well beyond Tom Brokaw trying to ease his conscience with his old pal.
Nebby @ 11:
[snark] Sure, but let's face it, the Iraqis are of the brown skinned type. They speak that gibberish primitive language and still live in ***** caves. So we bombed them to experiment with new weapons, so what? Big wooop! .....and the 4000 soldiers that died in the process, well, they volunteered. What exactly did they expect when they joined, to peel potatoes for four years?[/snark]
So if you tell a lie and everyone believes it, you're not accountable?
Is there any chance you could post some clips of David Gregorys' statements over the past couple days? I noticed that he has been carrying the water for Bush to the degree of using white house talking points during his opening commentary of his show yesterday. The uncoordinated dancing fool has turned out to be useful for MC Rove.
Cervantes@25: Yeah, and the BIGGEST lie was when Powell showed us all the
alleged photos of the trucks carrying alleged aluminum tubing to alleged manufacturing plants. We now know that these "pictures" were just an artists
version/rendition of what Powell said they were. Lies, lies and more lies.
Binned or B&?
Expecting one of these white linen tablecloth sterling silver cutlery polo playing douchbags to admit they were ... wrong?
Dont think so ...
brian williams interviewing tom brokaw, now THAT is the state of 2008 journalism.
piss fucking poor.
"a well respected journalist like Tom" (Brokow)
???@@@###!!!???
Are you kidding? Since When is this guy "respectful" and not a common HACK in fancy suit?
I have loathed him for years.
The hack. The lying REPORNICAN HACK.
This is part of the media's new narrative for what happened in the Bush Years. It's like Tom (6 Months) Friedman saying that everyone--the whole USofA--went bonkers after 9/11, that's his excuse and his narrative to post for history. But they forget that there was a large block of us who were alarmed from the get go and later horrified by the media's lack of curiosity, lack of the truth.
Anybody else reading (or have read) Static?
Leave these poor news people alone!!
It was their job to report whatever they were told by the administration. If they had begun to question what they were transcribing, they would have lost access. Loss of access would have meant loss of a job.
Look what happened to Knight-Ridder. They questioned the propaganda.
Are you saying you would have given up a 6 digit income because they wanted you to lies.
I didnt think so.
Oops. It appears someone threw some water on the wicked witch of the west, and she’s melting.
EliteLemming @ 39:
Even tho it didn't go anywhere, I found it quite shocking at times...kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
;-}
You should ALL know that this same lying media drummed up the racism in Los Angeles
and actually CAUSED the riots of 1992.
They needed a ratings bump.
Ask anyone (like me) who lived there at the time and witnessed this.
We were all asking, "What next? What new hell will these guys invent for ratings?"
I always liked that Howard Stern bit when Stuttering John asked Tom Brokaw to say something like Rubber Baby Bumper Blanket, or something like that.
Is Brokaw really this stupid or does he just want to appear this way?
Bull shizzle! I'm from Canada and I saw his shit a mile away, and so did the rest of the world. Lazy ass American media your are totally fucking complicit.
was trying to cereal p2b... sheesh...
themediamyth @ 8:
They are all in spin and denial mode these righteous scum, almost all of them. Brokaw has now proven he is one of the lowest. I bet my lunch money he pops up on Letterman real soon and David will softball the whole appearance. Williams and especially Gibson complete the picture of corporate whores. Boy they piss me off.
How Bush took control of Tom Brokaw's body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uItSVJit-xc
The media is being held accountable to a degree. Their continued lack of actually reporting valid, usable information (vice bulleted talking points) so that the populace can make a knowledgable decision has been a part of the decline in circulation of printed media and is leading broadcast viewers to go elsewhere for news.
What sort of statement on "broadcast journalism" is it when the younger adult age group prefers to get their information from "comedians" instead of the "established media"? Or they go online and get news from the web?
The media's duty is to provide valid usable information to the public. They're lack of attention to their duty is helping to bring about their own downfall.
The big media peeps were too worried about BushCo revenge to ask the important questions hell even the Dems were backed into a corner and forced to vote for war in a pre-election run-up. Saving their asses allowed BushCo the freedom to do whatever they want. Seems the only news organization I remember questioning it was the great San Jose Mercrury News which of course was labled as traitors by the right.
Just a reminder from the past.........
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hermann Goering quote
Hermann Goering - second in command of the Third Reich - He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at Nuremberg in 1945-1946, and sentenced to death by hanging. However, he committed suicide the night before he was to be executed. That should work quite well for Bush, Cheney, Rice, etc.,etc.,etc.
Brokaw needs to fired. He is not doing his job. He is really incompetent. He is just another war salesman for the military industrial complex.
Screw that moron!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Proud2bHumble Hus(in)sein Whitenbitter Assassininen Wrightly Punitively Zebraphilic "Don't truncate me, bro!" @ 42:
Well you got my curiosity up, as usual, whenever a new BOOK title is out there. So I went to Amazon to see what others who are reading it have to say and found this, "The book is well done and very timely. But what makes the most profound impact is that this conversation is so crucial and, so few (if any) are addressing this very real problem. Practically, the church culture has lost its connection with society at large and the divide continues to grow unless we give this language issue some serious inspection. That's what this book does. Not one for the narrative genre of so many recent books, I think it may work best here within the context of this fresh take on kingdom communication."
It's nice to know that the Christian "nation" is peeking out from under the covers to discover the "real" world "out there".
It's safe out here. You can even bring Jesus with you!
:?
ment to say...
trying 2b cereal p2b...
anyway...
"trust the computer. the computer is your friend."
Hey Tom, If the president told you to send your son or daughter over to help fight in Iraq based on what he told you. Would you encourage them to go? You're getting paid enough money to ask better questions than what you asked. You and a lot of the people in your profession failed the American public.
Cliff @ 40:
Try 7 digit.
Lets see "the context of the time" just how good is that argument and excuse.In the "context of the time" 1934-1945 the laws of Germany allowed what was done and so the Nazi's where innocent so by that excuse there should have been no Nuremberg Trials.now lets see how many other bad things done can be excused away with the statement "viewed in the context to that time".Pick the bad thing and the time and all is forgiven by this "logic".
The purpose of the 4th estate is to keep the bastards honest. Without that check the thugs can take over our government (re. 2000-2008). The media
failed and are whores who went along to get along. Oh, we are so screwed!
Its astounding to listen to these "Big Media" clowns justify their actions in the lead up to the war. Williams, Rather, Brokaw, face it....All of you blew it! Fess up and go find another profession, cause you all suck as journalists!
Full title:
Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back
Amy Goodman and David Goodman
Brokaw: When the President we’re going to war, that there’s a danger of the mushroom cloud, we know that there’s been experiments with Iraqi nuclear programs in the past. Honorable people believed he had WMD’s…Look, I think all of us would like to go back and ask questions with the benefit of hindsight (Yea, we’re just Monday morning quarter backs now) of what we know now, but a lot of what was going on was unknowable.
this is one of the lamest and most pathetic excuses i have ever heard. honorable people? wtf is he talking about?
the meme 'everyone thought saddam had wmds' is so far from the truth, disproved so many times, and incendiary to people, like moi, that marched, protested, wrote and blogged prior to Operation Iraqi Liberation.
yeah, brokaw you friggin waste of space, we would like to go back, and throw bums like you out on your ear for failing to help expose the obvious and provable lies the bush cabal was peddling. but, instead, you and your ilk got behind the war, helped spread the lies and misinformation, and are partially responsible for creating the conditions that allowed for OIL. (like hillary)
If a schmuck like me knew about the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, Ahmed Chalabi, Curveball, and Zionist Spies, how come the Corporate Media didn't know? The truth is the blame for the territorial pissings in Iraq spreads from The U.S. Military, The U.S. Media, The U.S. Government, and most of all the apathetic and sheeplike American herd.
I had realy hoped that we had learned something from Viet Nam. Obviously Tom didn't learn what I did. Wars of caprice are doomed to failure. Wars of nessesity are ugly nasty things you win if you want to continue to be a nation. This was a completely fabricated war to make money for the war machine, and to garner a second term. I said that 6 years ago, and Tom should have seen that then. He isn't stupid, just bought and paid for. Sad old hack. RIP Tom, you were always second stirng.
What an amoral bastard.
Fuck the whole lot of them...
EliteLemming @ 54:
haha
You're a surreal k1LL32, my L337 friend...
;-}
Jason Tallismon @ 59:
Because is the language used that makes the ameicon people and their support of their murderous administration and "private contractors" as well as troops, easier to deal with and sleep at night knowing that your tax dollars are going to supporting murder, rape and torture.
All with the starts and strips flying over it ........ and to think McCain is going to win and carry it all on, the world needs to shut it's borders to the US and quick !
moniker @ 31:
Works in the US every day.
St. Paul Scout @ 64:
That's what the world has been saying about the US for quite a while now.
ERWMSM. (EXTREME RIGHT WING MAIN STREAM MEDIA) There is no left wing mainstream media.
Some great comments here.
So, Don Imus turns out to be right about Tom Brokaw after all.
Williams interviewing Brokaw to exonorate the press from their sycophancy on the debacle in Iraq- pathetic!
"a lot of what was going on back then was unknowable"... RUBBISH!!! plenty of people knew it was absolute hogwash, Ron Paul knew it was hogwash.
"If not, then WTF is your actual function?"
Plutocrap corpsorate frontman, and he's known it for a long, long time...pompous fakeass-gravitass lamestreamer...
They're all so eager to grant themselves absolution without accepting accountability.
And all of them would like to go back and ask questions? Apparently, not Charlie Gibson, Tom. And how nice that that Tom's essentially justified the government lying to the public. And the press is supposed to do what, again, to prevent that? Hmm....
I'm just a 64 year old woman who's husband was drafted in 1966 after 4 years of marriage. We lost all our possessions and had to begin again when he was discharged in 1968. I believed with my whole being that this could never happen again. Maybe Tom Brokaw felt he did his job, but I certainly don't. You can put the blame on every person who didn't go that extra step to question Bush, and at least publically scream for him to "slow" down. We had troops surrounding Iraq on nearly all sides. We had naval vessels in every body of water near Iraq with missiles aimed at Saddam. We had inspectors on the ground in Iraq searching for the WMDs and unmanned aircraft watching every move in Iraq. We were absolutely safe, more than at any other time in history. If Saddam had attacked the inspectors or whatever, we could react within minutes. If we had allowed the inspectors to complete their WMD search, they might still be there today. It's for that reason alone that Bush and all connected to him, every voter who voted in 2004 to re-elect Bush, all the newsmen who didn't take the extra step to question the rush to war, and the pundits especially at Fox who paved the way for Bush's blunder, they all share the responsibility for over 4083 American Deaths, 29,978 maimed soldiers, who's lives will never be normal again, and untold number of dead Iraqis. This is a burden that is on their souls. It's a result of thousands and thousands of people who any one of them could have made a public issue, and possibly have stopped Bush and Cheney in their tracks. Collin Powel, George Tenant, on and on! So many people, such a huge failure! I hope each and everyone of them feel their own connecton to the greatest failure in modern history!
This is why the mainstream media is becoming more and more irrelevant, if they can’t report the facts and ask the hard questions then they will disappear.
I knew it was hogwash but I don't have a platform for people to hear my opinions.
Ron if there's no left, then there's no right... we jus eat shovelfuls o' shit...
abiodun @ 70:
sickopant synchronicity 69
This illustrates why the MSM have lost so much credibility with the American people. Everyone points the finger at someone else.
Thank God we have the Internet. We can learn the facts ourselves and not be so dependent any more on the MSM (especially when they fail to do their job.)
EliteLemming @ 77:
The establishment left and right are there so we don't look up and see that we're bottoms, despite that funny feeling in the back of our...
Ron... We all know your opinions are heary...
Hey, what's wrong with YOU TUBE? The videos are stopping and bufferring. They are hard to sit through. Someone else was having this problem.
aanya, you're right. the tv newsmedia that went along with this folly should be arrested, charged and convicted of 4,083 counts of murder 1. and this doesn't even count the innocent civilians.
Gosh, perhaps Tom missed that 11 million people around the world marched in protest demanding that the inspectors be given more time to prove there were no WMDs in Iraq.
This was in February 2003, before the war started.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2765215.stm
Somehow the MSM missed this.
Proud2bHumble Hus(in)sein Whitenbitter Assassin