The Washington Post wanted to send one message loud and clear today: almost nobody supports Bush's Iraq surge. The top front-page story was headlined "Bush's Iraq Plan Meets Skepticism On Capitol Hill." That's true. From there, the Post took the odd step of promoting columnist Dana Milbank (is he a reporter? or an editorial writer?) to the front page to joke that Team Bush "finally succeeded in uniting Congress on the war in Iraq. Unfortunately for Rice, the lawmakers were united in opposition to President Bush's new policy." Exhibit A was "a seething Sen. Chuck Hagel." Milbank, like other journalists, failed to note Hagel is a long-standing Bush-basher on Iraq, even before Saddam fell. Milbank did note Sen. Johnny Isakson said supportive things, as well as noting Barbara Boxer's dig at Condi the Spinster.
At the bottom of the front page, the headline was "U.S. Unit Patrolling Baghdad Sees Flaws in Bush Strategy." A soldier was instant-messaging his wife that the Iraqi army can't stand on its own. Inside, the headline was "U.S. Troops in Capital Doubt Key Assumption of Bush's Plan: A Ready Iraq Army." There is some picking and choosing here, since NBC found soldiers who saluted the surge as "about time." The Post also underlined that the locals didn't like the Bush surge: "Bush's Shift In Strategy Gets Dubious Reception On Streets of Baghdad."
The Post highlighted an Iraqi Christian man named Faiz Botros laying down the hard line of hopelessness: "Neither 20,000 soldiers, nor 100,000, nor hundreds of thousands, will change anything. In Iraq, the politicians are still living in a mentality from 1,400 years ago And this is the disaster of Iraq."
Later in the story, a poet lamented the Bush plan by saying "But he who is beaten with sticks does not like the one who fashions the sticks." The next line from the reporters was this: "To the artists and writers dinking the anise-flavored liquor called arak under the fruit trees outside the Dialogue Gallery, Bush's pledge of progress carried about as much weight as the paper in Abdul Hamid's hands."
The Post could clearly state that all of its quotes were real, and all of the stories of skepticism are true, and they are. But news coverage can be completely true and still look slanted against politicians or policies a newspaper doesn't favor. Friday's Post looks tilted to create the most pessimistic appraisal of Bush's chances the newspaper could muster.
