Bias isn't just the big, obvious, I'm-a-happy-tool-of-the-Right kind of Rutenbergish or (Bu)Milleresque thing that we often find plopped onto A1. And I realize that I don't do enough of the harder job of noticing the more insidious kind of bias, the kind that so completely frames a story that it all but disappears as you read. Take Weisman and Sanger's lead today, "U.S. Open to a Proposal That Supplants Council in Iraq," which reports the Bush administration's acquiesence to new proposals from U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi for a caretaker Iraqi government that would receive sovereignty on July 1 in place of the to-be-defuncted Iraqi Governing Council. Here's the meat of the piece:

The Brahimi plan would replace the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council with a transition government whose leaders would be appointed by the United Nations, after consultations with the United States, the governing council and other Iraqis. It could include members of the current governing council, but it is unclear how it would balance religious and regional rivalries within Iraq. By endorsing the Brahimi plan, the administration seemed to accept diminished American influence over the Iraqi political process as self-rule approaches and after power has passed back to Baghdad. The move was the latest abandonment of an element of the plan the Americans arrived at on Nov. 15, specifying the June 30 transfer.

But administration officials asserted that, even with the United Nations overseeing the selection of a caretaker government and then holding an election and helping the Iraqis write a constitution, American influence on the process would be considerable — not least because the United States is to remain in charge of military and security matters, and will be the country's main source of economic aid.

In addition, Ms. Rice's chief deputy for Iraq, Robert Blackwill, has been working side by side with Mr. Brahimi in Iraq to come up with the plan proposed on Wednesday, several officials noted. The surge of violence in Iraq in recent weeks effectively forced President Bush's hand, administration officials said.

In their own voice, the authors make a critical assessment of the current state of play—events have required the Administration to accept a weaker position in Iraq than it wanted to have—then, in the typical balancing gesture of "objective" journalism, report the assertion of (unnamed) officials that "considerable" influence on the Iraqi political process remains in American hands.

To a lefty, starved as we routinely are for oxygen on A1, the fact that Weisman and Sanger hinge their piece on a criticism of yet another BushCo backdown might seem like a small breath of air. That was certainly my first reaction. But notice what that criticism assumes, completely unthinkingly: that the only real story here is about American power and prerogative, and the extent to which the Administration may have damaged them in this instance. Weisman and Sanger take it for granted—so utterly for granted they can't even tell that's what they're doing—that the maintenance of Iraq as an American client state is the normal, natural, desirable outcome of our policy. And the ostensible goal of that policy? And everything that's happened since it was put in place? The writers drop that stuff into a hurried, deeply uninterested background paragraph toward the end of the piece, which waves dismissively at all they're happiest ignoring:

The 25-member Iraqi Governing Council was the product of efforts led by L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, when he first arrived in Baghdad at the close of what President Bush called major combat. At the time, American officials praised it as representative of Iraqi aspirations and perhaps even the most representative government in the Arab world. Since then, however, the council has lost much credibility in Iraqi society, American officials say.

In what sense, outside of the "praise" of (obviously entirely disinterested) American officials, was the IGC ever representative, even of "Iraqi aspirations" (a nice way of fudging the notion that representative governments are usually understood to be representing people)? And isn't there a bit of a story in the process by which the council "has lost much credibility in Iraqi society"—enough, in fact, that a sane and unbiased observer might have made that (recently quite bloody and violent) process the context for a story about the diplomatic turn of events? As opposed, that is, to wondering how much room Americans were going to continue to have to pull the puppet strings.

Call it imperial bias. It's everywhere in coverage of the Iraq mess, and not just everywhere in the Times. And it leads Weisman and Sanger into a truly bizarre and nasty final paragraph:

United States armed forces have tried to counter attacks by Shiites and Sunnis and create a stable environment in which the political process could be installed. Meanwhile, military commanders have complained that a lack of progress on the political front has hampered their own efforts to stabilize Iraq.

Lovely language, isn't it? So that's what all that fighting's been about lately! We're not killing innocent civilians in Falluja—we're stabilizing them. So that we can "install" a "political process"—much the way you'd want a stable platform to install a light fixture. And some distance from how you'd approach the question of fostering democratic self-government.

posted by michael  6:32:37 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

Cynical Republican asshole of the week award goes to ex-NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik. (This has nothing to do with the Times, but I can't resist it.) Ceci Connolly of the WaPo reports on a phony public hearing held Wednesday by the federal task force on drug importation (thanks to Dimmy Karras, Ceci's watchblogger, for the link)—phony because, as Connolly notes, "many of the speakers at yesterday's hearing turned out to have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, which has vehemently opposed efforts to legalize buying prescription drugs from Canada or elsewhere." And thus, Bernie Kerik. Let Ceci tell it (with my emphases):

Bernard Kerik, the former police commissioner who now runs a consulting firm with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), said allowing Americans to buy lower-cost drugs from countries such as Canada could invite terrorists to launch a biological attack under the guise of a legal purchase.

"We are very concerned if wholesale importing is permitted, it will make this country's medicine supply extremely vulnerable to terrorist intervention," said Kerik, who said in an interview later that he has been hired by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America to investigate the safety of drug imports. Kerik said he believes drug counterfeiting profits are already supporting terrorists.

Really, an impressive performance! Bernie's hit the GOP cynicism jackpot: I count as many as six distinct winners here. Whoring for Big Pharma leads, of course, tied closely to hijacking a public process for corporate ends; and his testimony offers two separate instances of Terra-war fear-mongering. (The second's an especially deft maneuver, adapting as it does the drug-war shibboleth about recreational drug use financing terrorism.) Then there's the smear by association—notice the way Kerik elides the difference between legal importation of low-cost drugs and the shady business of drug counterfeiting. Possible sixth count is faith-based policy pronouncements, since I don't know, but I've got a strong hunch that Bernie has exactly as much evidence as he needs (i.e., none) for his "belief" about where drug counterfeiting profits are going.

Keep it up, Bernie—anybody who can sell his soul as aggressively as this has certainly got dibs on some prime real estate in Hell.

posted by michael  4:02:23 PM  
tell me about it []