Both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported that American administrator (“viceroy” was the favorite term in the mainstream media though, last time I looked, we don’t got no roy) L.Paul Bremer left Iraq without giving a farewell speech.
If you missed the significance of that omission, the LAT snidely noted that it was “almost as if [Bremer] were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year.”
Trouble is, Bremer did give a well-received farewell speech.
“Bloggers,” writes John Leo, “in the United States have been all over this story, quoting one another, leaning on the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times for an apology or a correction. Last Thursday, the Times published a correction of sorts. No apology, though, and no regret for the zinger aimed at Bremer.
“The Times said that Bremer taped anaddress that was given to Iraqi broadcast media and ’not publicized to the western news media.’ So nobody at the Times watches Iraqi TV or reads blogs?
“One blogger wrote: ’Bremer’s farewell address had been common knowledge among readers of Internet blogs since at least June 30,’ four days before the Times criticized Bremer for having given no speech. Apparently nobody at the Times reads the American press either. Margie Wylie’s Newhouse piece discussing the Iraqi reaction to the Bremer talk ran five days before the Times said the speech hadn’t been given.”
Is the new motto of American journalists, “If there’s no handout, it didn’t happen?”