We did initially elect not to write a story about the campaign against Mr. Freeman. In deciding how to deploy our reporters, my initial judgment was that this squabble fell short of the bar, since the head of the National Intelligence Council is not a Senate-confirmable position and it lies well below cabinet rank.
But the fact that the campaign proved successful certainly justified Mark Mazzetti’s story in this morning’s paper, and we are continuing our reporting efforts today.
NYT editor, Doug Jehl on the decision not to cover the appointment of Chas Freeman to head the NIC as reported by Greg Sargent.
Notice Jehl’s premise: the story wasn’t whether Chas Freeman was right for the job or had too much baggage, it’s the campaign against him. That’s why the Gray Lady didn’t cover Freeman’s appointment until he withdrew from consideration, its editors (and reporters) saw nothing wrong with the appointment, so it was a non-story. And that’s why when it covered the aftermath of the withdrawal the headline (and story) might well have been written by Freeman himself.
The result of this misplaced focus as Jamie Kirchick and Jennifer Rubin observed, is that the Washington Post’s and New York Times’s reporting missed the main story.
Mickey Kaus (h/t Instapundit) sums it up nicely:
You Know This Guy We Haven’t Told You About? Well, He’s Not Going to Be Important!
And while in a way it’s funny that the MSM ignored the Freeman story until it was basically over, Jennifer Rubin points to the abdication of publications like the NY Times and the Washington Post. She concludes:
And why didn’t Pincus or the Times ask any lawmakers about their motives? You pick — laziness or bias? I suspect it is the same reason they used the religion of certain bloggers as a proxy for mind-reading the motives of those opposing Freeman. In short, they have become convinced of the existence of a nefarious Israel Lobby, so facts no longer matter.
As Rubin noted, The HIll interviewed a number of legislators and all of them insisted that they had their own reasons for opposing Freeman and that AIPAC had contacted none of them. (More via memeorandum) Newsweek attributed the major opposition to Freeman as coming from Nancy Pelosi because of Freeman’s support for the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests.
My own suspicion is that Freeman was moved to withdraw for a different reason. It makes no sense that the Obama administration would be swayed by a bunch of conservative, pro-Israel bloggers, so I can’t believe the blogging (or reporting) is what cause Freeman to withdraw. And since the MSM was largely silent about the appointment there couldn’t have been that many people who know who Freeman is and even fewer who knew about the appointment. (Do you figure that even 1 million people knew about the appointment? I doubt it.) So sure Freeman’s opponents tried to get the word out about his liabilities, but there was no place for those reports to get any political traction.
What did happen is that Representatives Kirk and Israel pressed for the NIC’s Inspector General to investigate Freeman. That investigation was bound to show that his ties with Saudi Arabia were more extensive than advertised. There’s no indication that the Obama administration asked for Freeman’s withdrawal. (There’s also no indication that the administration fought for his appointment.) One can only conclude that it was Freeman himself who feared the revelations of the IG and stepped aside before they became an issue. His accusation that the Israel Lobby scuttled his appointment was calculated to obfuscate the real issue. Still there was a credulous media ready to accept it.
The LA Times yesterday opined:
Our opinion is this: Israel is America’s friend and ally. It deserves to exist safely within secure borders. We hope it will continue to prosper as a refuge for Jews and a vibrant democracy in the region (alongside an equally democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza). But we do not believe that Israel should be immune from criticism or that there is room for only one point of view in our government.
U.S. policy has been extremely supportive of Israel over the years, as have many of our policymakers. That’s fine. But theirs should not be the only voices allowed in the room.
Similarly MSNBC alleged:
Criticizing Israel — legitimately or not — is the ultimate third rail of American politics, even in a new administration promising change.
The problem though isn’t that Freeman criticizes Israel, it’s that he demonizes Israel. Take this line:
Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace.
I’d challenge this premise, but Jeffrey Goldberg did a fair, if imperfect, job of it:
I argue constantly that Israel shares the Palestinian talent for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, but really, has Israel never shown any talent for peace? Even Benny Morris and the new historians would argue that this is, at best, inconsistently the case. Israel, after all, ceded the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt in exchange for peace; it made a durable peace with the Hashemites; it pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, only to be rewarded by Hezbollah rocket fire and ground attacks; it went to Camp David that same year and offered what President Clinton considered to be a credible set of concessions to the Palestinians, only to have Yasser Arafat reject them without making a counter-offer; and in 2005, one of Israel’s great warriors, Ariel Sharon, unilaterally conceded the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. Did he do that in the interest of furthering war with the Palestinians?
As Goldberg showed, Freeman’s statement was ahistorical. It wasn’t the result of analysis. And it wasn’t criticism. It was pure vitriol.Claiming that Freeman is a critic of Israel understates the case. He is much more hostile than a critic.
Claiming that the Israel lobby brooks no dissent and stopped the appointment overstates the case. Unfortunately, the MSM is all too accepting of those claims and of Freeman. That they didn’t do basic due diligence is the real scandal here. But other than a few bright spots, don’t expect the MSM to be introspective about their latest failure.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
