Glimmers of Hope

In the past few days, we've seen a few glimmers of hope regarding how the media are covering this election -- hope, that is, that the media may finally be willing to call the Bushites on some of their lies, and give a clearer picture of the choice four weeks hence. One high-profile example: the 1,000-page-plus report released yesterday on Iraq that appears to pretty much conclude that Iraq had destroyed most of its WMDs in the immediate aftermath of the 1991 war, and that it had not plans to reconstitute its nuclear program. Notwithstanding the Administration's efforts, before the report's release, to spin it as a "yes, but" report that would emphasize the notion that Saddam would have gone back to his evil plotting just as soon as the U.N. sanctions were dropped, most of the press coverage I've seen on this has emphasized the report's blistering bottom line: No WMDs in 2003. No immediate threat. No hint of an active program. No casus belli.

(Of course, there are always exceptions; the Washington Post editorial page apparently views the report as evidence that the Administration has commendably taught us some very forward-looking lessons. And all at so little cost, too. Bravo!)

The tragedy of this for our country, and for the world, is really rather stunning when you think about it. Right now more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers are pinned down in Iraq in a war whose causes were bogus from the beginning (and, as the Times last Sunday suggested, the Administration pretty much knew that). More than a thousand U.S. soldiers and ten thousand Iraqi civilians have died; wartime injuries have inflicted untold additional misery not captured in the mortality figures. The U.S. is held in contempt in much of the civilized and semi-civilized world alike. The country's military resources are spread so thin as to make a coherent response to the threat of international terrorism impossible. And all because of one Administration's lies and skewed vision of the world.

Incredible.

Fortunately, the media seem to be developing some backbone -- better late than never, I suppose. In the aftermath of the Vice Presidential debate, several outlets have catalogued the startling array of whoppers that the aptly named Dick Cheney grunted out in his colloquy with John Edwards. Actually, I really thought this debate had no clear victor: Cheney did, after all, seem to have an answer to most everything -- usually a lie, but few viewers were likely to do the requisite fact-checking; Edwards drove me a bit crazy with his unwillingness to answer the questions of the moderator, and his sometimes rather ham-fisted attempts to strongarm the subject back to the Kerry talking points. But the Democrats seem to be winning the spin war for once, and that's reason to be grateful, notwithstanding my personal response to the VP debate.

And that debate itself will fade into irrelevance after Friday's "town hall" forum (now there's a construct I'm getting sick of). It's hard to say who will do worse in that particular debate -- obviously the scuttlebutt right now is that Kerry is in the stronger position, but the press will no doubt focus on his "wooden" demeanor and not worry too much about what the man is actually saying. And although Bush looked like he was on the ropes following the last one, he has been able to find his Inner Gladhander before when it mattered. So, in a way, I'm even more nervous about the Friday debate than I was about the one last Thursday.

Still: Glimmers of hope. Let's feel good about that, shall we?