E&P Survey, At Critical Point, Editorials Offer Little Commentary on Troop Escalation

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E&P Survey Finds That, At Critical Point, Editorials Offer Little Commentary on Troop Escalation in Iraq
As a critical turning point in America’s role in the nearly four-year-old Iraq war nears, the editorial pages of the largest U.S. newspapers have been surprisingly – even, appallingly – silent on President Bush’s likely decision to send thousands of more troops to the country.

It follows a long pattern, however, of the editorial pages strongly criticizing the conduct of the war without advocating a major change in direction. Now it comes at what appears to be a crucial point, with Democrats in Congress, overcoming their own timidity on the issue, finally emerging Friday with opposition to the buildup -- setting up a possible battle royal in the days ahead.

Newspapers, at least in their editorials, have chosen to retreat to the sidelines so far. This comes even as hawkish conservatives such as Oliver North, and dozens of other op-ed contributors, have come out against the idea, and polls show that 11% or less of the public back the idea. That would seem to set the stage for editorials taking a strong stand, for or against.

An E&P survey of major papers’ editorial pages this past week, however, finds that very few have said much of anything about the well-publicized “surge” idea, pro or con. They may finally declare themselves Sunday – much too late, given that the president seems to have made up his mind and just shook up his cast of commanders to assemble a more sympathetic crew.

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Greg Mitchell
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528639

[Robbien]

1. Isn't it strange that all of a sudden every paper has no editorials on the subject

The surge is the biggest news coming out of the WH for the last month, but every newspaper in the land has made their own individual decision not to print editorials about it.

Yeah right.

[rodeodance]

2. and very little on front pages of papers of iraq war in general last

week (last several days)