Mugger: Bush and Blair Go to War: The mainstream media's all shook up.

Now that the "phony war," as some have described the farcical United Nations circle-jerk that’s clogged the news for several months, is over and the invasion of Iraq is days away, let’s clear the decks.

As anti-Semitism continues to foul the United States—Pat Buchanan’s the American Conservative and Chris Matthews’ MSNBC tirades against Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz are just the most obvious examples—why hasn’t the New York Times run an editorial condemning Rep. Jim Moran’s comments at a Reston, VA, antiwar gathering on March 3? As readers of most other daily newspaper editorial pages know, Moran said: "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should."

Moran was correctly pilloried by the Washington Post as well as Democrats like Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi and Terry McAuliffe, and was stripped of a minor leadership position. Several House Democrats have urged Moran not to seek reelection next year: I think that’s up to his constituents, who one hopes will toss him out on his ear.

Isn’t it appalling that the Times, which showed no reluctance to slam Trent Lott repeatedly after his dumb comments about segregation, hasn’t lent its influential voice to the outrage over Moran? Never mind that the "Jewish community" is hardly unified on the question of an Iraq war, the tone-deaf Virginian’s statement was a reflection of a rapidly growing conspiracy theory, on both the left and right wings, that deserves comment from New York’s largest newspaper.

But then I’ve always considered the Times to be anti-Semitic itself.

No less nauseating was the City Council’s passing an antiwar resolution condemning President Bush’s Iraq policy. The measure passed by a 31-17 margin, with the Bronx’s Oliver Koppel speaking for the majority: "Killing people should always be a last resort." Thanks for the soundbite, Mr. Ten Commandments, but as a New Yorker you’d think 9/11 might still be etched in your memory. Oh, that’s right, Saddam had nothing to do with al Qaeda’s attack. That’s believable. Koppel ought to lobby that the dictator’s image be placed on boxes of Wheaties.

Meanwhile, it’s a close call in determining which group of professionals whine more, baseball players or journalists. When David Wells’ candid Perfect I’m Not was leaked to the press, former buddies of the Yankees pitcher stood on line to either refute comments in the book or, like choir boys, claim that it was "bad for the game." Wells’ implication that Barry Bonds is pumped by steroids is hardly a bulletin, and his descriptions of rampant drug and alcohol abuse and beanball fights merit a yawn. Most New York sportswriters turned against Wells because they don’t want to be blacklisted in the locker room by the likes of Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter and Mo Vaughn.

Ages ago, before Marvin Miller and Curt Flood changed the economics of the game, generally for the better (aside from the union’s strength), beat reporters and ballplayers had a different relationship. They drew similar salaries and catted around together after games, and less sterile stories appeared. Now, with the tax bracket gulf so enormous, athletes can tell the press to shove it (like Boston’s Manny Ramirez) if they don’t like critical questions. Hard cheese, fellas.

But Washington-based reporters are far worse if only for the obvious reason that what they’re covering is more significant than a baseball game. So for days after President Bush’s March 6 press conference there was griping galore in the media, mostly because Bush evaded questions, called on those he wanted and scheduled the prime-time gathering just hours before it occurred. Big deal: Presidents and the political press have had an adversarial relationship for as long as any American can remember. The reporter attempts to trip up the chief executive, who, in turn, tries to bypass the assembled and speak directly to the American public.

In last week’s New York Press, Matt Taibbi wrote an entertaining article about how the DC press corps got hosed by Bush, making the absurd assertion that each question was approved by the White House. Not that he had a shred of evidence to back up that charge. He opined that the eunuchs in the room, fearing retribution from the administration, were unable to tell the truth, which to Taibbi was this line: "President Bush, looking like a demented retard on the eve of war..." I find this pretty silly, but it’d be a hoot if Taibbi replaced Newsweek’s house suck-up Howard Fineman (along with Jonathan Alter), whom he correctly describes as "one of the worst monsters in the business."

Taibbi continued, in a passage that would fit perfectly in the Nation’s editorials: "In his best moments, Bush was deranged and uncommunicative, and in his worst moments, which were most of the press conference, he was swaying side to side like a punch-drunk fighter, at times slurring his words and seemingly clinging for dear life to the verbal oases of phrases like ‘total disarmament,’ ‘regime change,’ and ‘mass destruction.’"

Michael Crowley, writing in this week’s New York Observer, had a more studious take on the press conference, agreeing that the media was timid, but concluding that Bush, rather than being "deranged," simply won the battle. He wrote: "The press corps seemed mainly to serve as a prop, providing Mr. Bush with an opportunity to deliver another pro-war speech while appearing to bravely face the music."

Crowley, like numerous scolds, objected to Bush’s breaking with Beltway Establishment protocol by not allowing 82-year-old Helen Thomas to ask the first question, a perk she’s received since JFK’s brief administration. Horrors. Why would Bush, who was described by Thomas as the worst president in American history, give her the time of day? Some self-consumed reporters probably thought the snub of Thomas was even worse than Bush’s scuttling the ABM Treaty or advocating the necessary overhaul of Social Security, an entitlement that was enacted in the 1930s, when the United States was an entirely different country.

Maybe presidential press conferences ought to be eliminated entirely.

After all, Taibbi and Crowley needn’t worry that Bush isn’t ridiculed enough. The same issue of the Observer featured an overheated, cliched and repetitive editorial that characterized the president as "smug," "inarticulate" and "clueless," and extended its sophomoric criticism to the entire administration. Bush’s cabinet, according to the Observer, is a bunch of "cowboys" who are guilty of "Reagan-era bluster and frat-house machismo," which has "played into the hands of terrorists, breaking apart NATO and fracturing half-century-old relations with Europe that have persevered through all the roilings of post-World War II history."

One wonders: What century are the Observer’s editors living in? Certainly not this one. They mock Bulgaria, a country that’s familiar with tyranny, for supporting Bush, while sticking up for France and Germany. Never mind that the latter nation is in chaos, with 13.3 percent unemployment and a leader, Gerhard Schroder, who narrowly won reelection last fall because he campaigned on an anti-American platform. As for France, since when have her diplomats ever cooperated with the United States, at least in the last 100 years?

The editorial’s opening lines, however, are worthy of Lewis Lapham or Michael Moore (if he knew how to write anything more complicated than slogans). The paper that endorsed Bob Dole in 1996 said: "As the nation slouches toward war, the sentries of our democracy are whirling asunder and threatening to dismember the nation. On one hand, a callow and blustering President has assured us that his goal is right by confusing the despot in Iraq and the atrocities of 9/11. On the other hand, those political leaders who oppose going to war have failed through a shockingly craven silence that seems strange and almost calculated; never have opponents of a war seemed so lame and dumbstruck, almost as though they were watching an engineer drive a locomotive right into the side of a building."

What the Observer really means is that "respectable" Democratic presidential candidates, like Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, John Edwards and Dick Gephardt aren’t doing enough to keep Saddam in power for an indefinite period, time in which he can mastermind terrorist attacks in the U.S., England and maybe even Paris. Trouble is, of course, those four Democrats all voted to authorize military action in Iraq. But this is disingenuous, for, as some researcher at the Observer must’ve noted, "fringe" candidates like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun have been obnoxiously vocal in their calls for appeasement with Iraq.

Once the war begins, I wonder if the Times’ op-ed columnists (with the exception of William Safire) will continue their jihad against Bush. Ignore, for the moment, the paper’s mushy editorials that are probably ghostwritten by Hans Blix, and consider Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman. Three different styles, each equally out of touch.

Krugman’s March 14 piece, headlined "George W. Queeg," contained this gem: "[M]ore people than you think—including a fair number of people in the Treasury Department, the State Department and yes, the Pentagon—don’t just question the competence of Mr. Bush and his inner circle; they believe that America’s leadership has lost touch with reality."

Dowd, on March 16: "The president’s slapped-together Azores summit is not meant to ‘go the last mile’ on diplomacy, as Ari Fleischer put it. If Mr. Bush really wanted to do that, he’d try to persuade some leaders who disagree with him; he’d confront the antiwar throngs in London, Paris or Berlin and not leave poor, exhausted Tony Blair to always make the case."

I think Blair, who’s been given political cover by Bush more times than the Yanks have won the World Series, can take care of himself without sympathy from a burnt-out scribbler like Dowd.

Finally, Friedman, who wrote a column on Dec. 18 titled "Blair for President," also dumps on Bush last Sunday, as he too wishes that the British prime minister were living in the White House. Friedman, who knows that at the Times you’re not allowed to be pro-Bush (Safire was grandfathered in), brown-noses his bosses by saying, "We need a little less John Wayne and a little more J.F.K."

I dislike unions, but wouldn’t it be an act of God if the Times, starting immediately, was hit by a massive labor strike, one that would cripple the paper so severely that it couldn’t publish?

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