Washington Post Headline on Iraq Targets Democrats
19 September 2007 8:41 am by Taylor Marsh
Washington Post Headline on Iraq Targets Democrats updated
Excuse me, but the headline on this
article seems not only weighted towards depicting Democrats as spinelessly
caving on Iraq, but also entirely and completely wrong when compared to the
actual storyline. First read TPM’s headline:
It follows on the following story from the AP: Democrats
won’t temper Iraq legislation.
After weeks of suggesting Democrats would temper their approach to Iraq legislation
in a bid to attract more Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared
abruptly Tuesday that he had no plans to do so. … ..… .. “There (are) no goals. It’s all definite timelines,” he
told reporters of the planned legislation.(snip)
Reid’s hardline stance, announced after the party’s weekly policy lunch on
Tuesday, reflects a calculation by Democrats that Levin’s proposal probably
would have failed either way. Democrats hold a thin majority in the Senate
and similar legislation has repeatedly fallen short of the 60 votes needed
to break a GOP filibuster.When asked why Democrats won’t soften the deadline, the majority leader said
he doesn’t have confidence Republicans are willing to challenge Bush on the
war.“I think they’ve decided definitely they want this to be the Senate
Republicans’ war, not just Bush’s. They’re jealous,” he said with a smile.
… ..
Enter the Washington Post and their view of the details. Here’s the headline:
The date for withdrawal may have been pushed, but Democrats’ Iraq push is definitely not “on hold.” The headline is particularly off tone when you take a look at the body of the article.
Unable to garner enough Republican support, Senate Democratic leaders said
yesterday that they are abandoning a bipartisan effort to bring U.S. troops
home from Iraq by next spring.Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said that Democrats had been
willing to make the troop withdrawal a “goal” in order to attract
GOP support, but it never materialized. Instead, Reid will again push for
a firm deadline, this time June 2008, along with a stronger effort at cutting
off war funding.“It’s all definite timelines,” Reid said. … ..
As Greg Sargent states in his post, it’s obvious Senator Reid is pulling Levin’s
words from earlier off the table. Levin had said he was willing to offer non-binding
language in order to get more Republicans on board. As Reid is quoted in the
AP article, “Levin’s proposal probably would have failed either way.”
They’re finally getting it. No sense in compromising with Republicans because
they’ve decided it’s not only Bush’s war, but they want this one too.
The headline of the Washington Post article is wrong. It’s biased against the
Democrats. It doesn’t comport with the reporting. Everyone knows that reporters
don’t set their own headlines. This is bias from the top. Good to know.
UPDATE: Howie Klein makes a good point in his post on this subject, calling out the Post for calling escalation Republicans “moderates.”
