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>