E&P: Both NYT editorial page and Frank Rich suggest their own paper overhyped Iran weapons charges

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: Frank Rich Hits Claims on Iranian Weapons in Iraq -- Which His Own Paper Hyped
By E&P Staff
Published: February 18, 2007

NEW YORK Five days ago, The New York Times' editorial page suggested that claims of Iran supply weapons killing American troops were being overplayed. On Sunday, columnist Frank Rich makes the same charge.

Neither exactly makes it clear, but one of the leading news organizations allegedly overhyping the charges was their own newspaper -- first in a Feb. 10 front page exclusive by Michael R. Gordon, then in a Feb. 12 front pager by James Glanz, who along with many others attended the now-famous Feb. 11 briefing by three anonymous sources in Baghdad.

Here is part of what Rich writes. The rest is availble via TimesSelect at www.nytimes.com for subscribers.

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Maybe the Bush White House can’t conduct a war, but no one has ever impugned its ability to lie about its conduct of a war. Now even that well-earned reputation for flawless fictionalizing is coming undone. Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. The team that once sold the country smoking guns in the shape of mushroom clouds has completely lost its mojo.

Surely these guys can do better than this. No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade. General Pace said he didn’t know about the briefing and couldn’t endorse its contention that the Iranian government’s highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq. Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly. Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script. Last week’s frantic improvisations were vintage Scooter Libby, at best the ur-text for a future perjury trial.

Yet for all the sloppy internal contradictions, the most incriminating indictment of the new White House disinformation campaign is to be found in official assertions made more than a year ago. The press and everyone else seems to have forgotten that the administration has twice sounded the same alarms about Iranian weaponry in Iraq that it did last week....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003547287