Your anti-war liberal media at work

Posted 12 weeks 2 days ago by Joel

Kevin Drum points us to this Syracuse University study showing that war opponents and supporters got roughly the same airtime in major media outlets during the runup to the Iraq invasion.

Only one problem, it seems that all of the opponents were:

Foreigners. Yep. Despite the fact that plenty of Democratic politicians and U.S. experts opposed the war, the news networks almost completely shut off domestic sources of criticism.

See, you have to be one of those crazy French surrender monkeys to have opposed the invasion!

As a result, forty percent of all anti-war quotes were attributed to Saddam Hussein and his underlings. An additional 17% were attributed to foreign sources, including leaders in France, who became the administration's most prominent international critics. And UN officials, who urged the White House to allow the weapons inspections a chance to proceed, were the source of 8% of antiwar quotes. This juxtaposition of the Bush administration's arguments in favor of military action, and the arguments of foreign leaders, including Saddam Hussein, against, created an "us vs. them" narrative.

Well, it's not like any real Americans opposed the war.