Iraq, re-visioned

The Wall Street Journal's opinion site offers a stunningly ignorant and biased view of the war in Iraq. Yes, folks, it's true: Historical revisionism is already coming to a quagmire near you.

The article really needs to be read in full to capture all the nuances, because its very tone is pervasive and astonishingly bad. But let's look at select bits:

We are told by careful pollsters that half of the American people believe that American troops should be brought home from Iraq immediately. This news discourages supporters of our efforts there. Not me, though: I am relieved. Given press coverage of our efforts in Iraq, I am surprised that 90% of the public do not want us out right now.

Note here that this concerns only press coverage. The fact that generals think the war is a debacle, or that 100,000 may have been killed in Iraq's internal violence, or that a militia literally took over a town. Our Mr. Wilson -- not the bad guy with the CIA wife, this one -- is only looking at how the media covers Iraq.

The idea is flawed on its premise. You can't look at how the media covers something without looking at the reality of the something. Wilson does not do that. He wants to say that the negative portrayal of the Iraq war means the media is negative. You can't do that without looking at the reality, which is that dozens of bodies turn up mutilated -- decapitation seems to be a favorite -- every single day. Not, unfortunately, to Wilson:

Naturally, some of the hostile commentary reflects the nature of reporting. When every news outlet struggles to grab and hold an audience, no one should be surprised that this competition leads journalists to emphasize bloody events.

You'd better believe if 30 headless corpses were found in Wilson's hometown, he wouldn't be complaining about adverse media coverage. Perhaps the media should write about all the people who weren't decapitated yesterday?

Then James Q. Wilson runs ahead and assaults the New York Times for its coverage of the wiretapping program -- illegal as it appears to be. Is the media supposed to ignore a huge violation of the law, when a legal remedy would be incredibly easy? (e.g., get a warrant!)

Then he attacks the New York Times and LA Times for covering the international financial monitoring program ... conveniently leaving out his own Wall Street Journal. Nor should it matter that the existence of the monitoring program was bragged upon by the White House shortly after it was created.

There's much more in the column. I particularly appreciate how he says Vietnam reporting turned negative because of weak political leadership and a basis of lies -- without necessarily extending the parallel to Iraq. Instead, he says political leadership in Iraq has been strong.

What? Leadership is the act of leading. If we had strong political leadership, there would be a strong consensus developed by our leader, a common understanding of the facts, a common cause or drive pushing us forward. The simple fact is none of that is happening, and exactly the inverse is true.

James Q. Wilson here is drinking his Kool-Aid, and loving every drop. Let's hope no one else in his cult will follow.