{"id":289,"date":"2006-12-03T19:34:07","date_gmt":"2006-12-04T02:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=289"},"modified":"2006-12-03T19:50:19","modified_gmt":"2006-12-04T02:50:19","slug":"gergens-cheerleaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"Gergen’s Cheerleaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Gergen has worked in the White House for several presidents including Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. He has also worked in the press as a frequently consulted pundit and analyst. As such he has experience obfuscating the truth from both sides of the media looking glass.<\/p>\n

Today on CNN’s Reliable Sources, he confessed<\/a> to what many media critics and knowledgeable citizens already knew: The press failed to do their job in the stampede toward the invasion of Iraq. Even worse than that, they affirmatively promoted it.<\/p>\n

“There was a sense, in the lead-up to the war, in which the press, I think, was guilty of cheerleading. We were waving the flags and it was almost unpatriotic to question the possibility of war with Iraq.”<\/span><\/p>\n

That admission should be justification for terminating Gergen and everyone on his cheerleading squad. In a just world, the families of the fallen ought to be able to sue them for wrongful death. There is simply no professional excuse for the behavior Gergen is describing. It is never the media’s purpose to endorse policy. Their purpose is to investigate and report. Had they done that, there is a pretty good chance that we, and the people of Iraq, would not now be mired in the chaos and tragedy that the media’s negligence spawned. Gergen and his cohorts cannot plead ignorance because even he admits that they knew more than they let on:<\/p>\n

“…we were too easy on the claims of weapons of mass destruction and the mushroom clouds being a reason to go to war.”<\/span><\/p>\n

No kidding! And it wasn’t as if there wasn’t a clamoring for further investigation and deliberation. The American people, and people throughout the world, took to the streets in record setting numbers in a vain attempt to head off the hostile intentions of the Bush administration and their enablers in the press.<\/p>\n

It is unconscionable that propagandists like Gergen can wreak havoc on the world, and when they discover the curtain has been pulled aside and they are revealed as frauds, they just go on TV again and discuss how the curtain came to be pulled aside.<\/p>\n

There are consequences for failure on the level demonstrated here – sad, desperate, enduring consequences. Unfortunately, not for those responsible. Neither our leaders, nor their media co-conspirators will be held to account. But thousands of American families and tens of thousands more in Iraq will forever bear the scars from cuts delivered by Gergen’s Cheerleaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Gergen has worked in the White House for several presidents including Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. He has also worked in the press as a frequently consulted pundit and analyst. As such he has experience obfuscating the truth from both sides of the media looking glass. Today on CNN’s Reliable Sources, he confessed to what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-4F","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":293,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=293","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":0},"title":"The Iraq Study Group’s Media Blindness","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/8\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In the 96 pages of the ISG report, there is not a single reference to television, radio, newspapers, or any other media in Iraq or worldwide. Yesterday the Bush family consigliore, James Baker, and his Leisure World Rockettes, released the product of their nine month review of the sad state\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":709,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=709","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":1},"title":"It’s Best When Everybody Thinks Alike","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/14\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In this administration, as in the halls of Fox News, it's best when everybody thinks alike - No matter how much they pretend otherwise. The White House held it's annual \"Holiday\" (that's right, holiday) Party for the media last night and the guest list was, to no one's surprise, heavily\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":804,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=804","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":2},"title":"Pundit Population Explosion?","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/20\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Farhi of the Washington Post penned a column today that looks at what he describes as an overpopulation of political pundits on television: \"With the cable news networks ramping up wall-to-wall political coverage, the demand for people to analyze, comment upon and speculate wildly about the presidential race has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":166,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=166","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":3},"title":"Fox News’ Non-Stop Zarqawi Party","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/8\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The news of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is deservedly blanketing the airwaves. He was a significant figure in Iraq and was responsible for untold devastation. He was certainly a major target of the U.S. military, who can view his demise as a success. But Fox News may be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1117,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1117","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":4},"title":"Pundits Make Electoral College Vote Predictions","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/2\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As the 2008 campaign winds to close, the pundit class is weighing with their electoral vote calls. It's bad news for John McCain when everyone is predicting a Barack Obama win and the Republicans give Obama bigger victory margins than the Democrats. Below are the predicted Electoral College votes for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1653,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1653","url_meta":{"origin":289,"position":5},"title":"Throw The Bums Out","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/23\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In the wake of last Tuesday's elections the press has coalesced into a near monotonic dispenser of conventional witless-dom. Pundit after pundit repeated the hackneyed, lazy analysis that the election results reflect a single-minded expression of anti-incumbency on the part of voters. 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