Michael Getler, The Washington Post's Ombudsman, writes today about The Post's coverage in last Sunday's paper of the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief.
The lead of the story by reporters Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus said: "President Bush was warned a month before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and might be targeting a building in Lower Manhattan." The story said the information was in the written daily briefing presented to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001.
Over the past several years, I've come to the opinion that the editorial pages of The Post are not nearly so liberal, or anti-conservative, as the news pages, a condition which is, of course, much more insidious, and much more dangerous. The problem Getler discusses is, to me, a clear symptom of this problem and clear evidence in support of the term "liberal media." Fortunately, The Post has long had an Ombudsman on their staff (unlike another large, influential newspaper on the East Coast which shall remain nameless), so many folks contacted Getler over this irresponsible injection of Milbank's and Pincus's personal political agendas into the story.
The memo refers to "federal buildings" and not "a building," as the story's first sentence does. The memo does not use the word "targeting." It mentions "New York" but does not specify "Lower Manhattan."
...
The words "targeting a building in Lower Manhattan" present a mental picture closer to the World Trade Center than does "federal buildings in New York," which could mean many locations.
Getler goes on to cite other instances of political spin in the story, including its positioning alongside a related article and a photo from August 2001 of the President in a golf cart. One reader responded,
"Message conveyed," wrote one reader. "Fully aware of Osama bin Laden's plans to hijack an airliner and crash it into a building in lower Manhattan, Bush has fun on the golf course."
Getler concludes,
...it seems to me that these complaints, even if some of them reflect political views, are valid criticisms and worth learning from.
He falls on the correct end of the scale, but fails miserably in terms of degree. The so-called "reporters" clearly structured the article to put the administration in the worst possible light. If they truly believe what they're trying to get their readers to believe, that the PDB was a clear indication of contemporary activity by bin Laden to fly hijacked airliners into buildings in New York, that the PDB provided "actionable intelligence," implying that the President should have taken action, but instead he was spending his time on a golf course, then they're idiots, and should be summarily fired. A reporter who can't objectively parse such a relatively short, straight-forward document as that PDB isn't sufficiently competent.
On the other hand, if they didn't actually believe what they "implied," then they're liars. I would hope that neither incompetents nor liars are welcome on The Post's staff.
One more instance of some folks being either stupid or liars.
UPDATE:Spoons points to a post by Dave Huber on this topic. I sent a trackback to Spoons, but then forgot (until now) to update this post to legitimize the trackback.
