By Ben Fritz and Brendan Nyhan
In an article posted on Slate yesterday, Will Saletan defends his "Kerryisms" column against our original critique (which also took on Jacob Weisberg's "Bushisms" feature) and follow-up post.
He accuses us of not getting the joke, but we fully understand it. As Ben wrote in his piece, "There's nothing inherently wrong with making fun of the candidates, but even while engaging in satire, political journalists still have a responsibility to not mislead their audience." Our objection, as we previously argued, is that the basic format of the column distorts the meaning of the Senator's words. If "the main point of Kerryisms is to highlight his caveats," as Saletan claims, he could simply reprint Kerry's statements verbatim with the caveats in bold or italics. Instead, he removes them and puts them in footnotes, so the first thing readers see is an incomplete or altered statement attributed to Kerry. Stripping out the Senator's caveats is hardly an effective way to highlight them.
This reason for this format is clear when you consider Saletan's original description of the feature, which stated that he had "translated [Kerry's quote] into plain English." At that time, he occasionally went so far as to put his own words in brackets in place of Kerry's, saying that the replacement word or phrase was "what a normal person would have substituted for the ornate phrase Kerry delivered." Saletan also referred to the original as the "Kerry version" and the altered one as the "English version."
In his response to our criticism, Saletan writes that "A month ago, I realized that this description was confusing," so he replaced it with more restricted language (the new instructions now appear on a separate sidebar page linked in the article rather than above the "Kerryism" itself). He accuses us of ignoring this change, and he is correct that we should have noted it (we have posted a clarification to our post and column). But he neglects to mention that his previous instructions are still included with at least five of the original columns, which appear not to have been altered.
Saletan also states that "Spinsanity says Slate fails to provide 'links to let readers check the context of the quotes.' Actually, we print the whole quote, untouched, right below the analyzed version. Spinsanity doesn't tell you that." We did note in our original articles that the footnotes appearing below the edited quotes included the excised text, but we did not clearly explain that the verbatim statement was also included. As a result, we have clarified this in the original articles as well. However, Saletan's claim that "we print the whole quote, untouched, right below the analyzed version" is not always true. In at least two columns (one of which we criticized), the "Kerry version" of the quote was relegated to a separate sidebar page that few readers are likely to visit.
In the end, changing the instructions and including the full quote doesn't fix the problem. "Kerryisms" regularly presents a distorted version of a presidential candidate's words to Slate's millions of readers. We don't believe that's responsible journalism.
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Related links:
-New “Kerryism” falsifies Senator’s statement (Brendan Nyhan, 6/17/04)
-Stereotypes run amok: Slate's misleading "Bushisms" and "Kerryisms" (Ben Fritz, 6/15/04)
The latest staff statements from the 9/11 Commission have prompted a fiery debate over whether the White House suggested that Iraq played a role in the terrorist attacks. While administration officials did imply such a connection (an argument noted in our post yesterday and developed in detail in our forthcoming book), several reporters and commentators have distorted the letters President Bush sent to Congress in March 2003 announcing the invasion of Iraq.
In the first letter, Bush stated, "acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 [the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq] is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." A longer version sent to Congress two days later included slightly different language: "I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."
These quotations, which draw a broad link between Iraq and 9/11, have been seized upon and widely disseminated in the last week. However, as Eric Soskin first pointed out on the blog of the Harvard Federalist Society, Bush's statements - which addressed one of the legal certifications required for war by Congress - are being misrepresented through the use of truncated quotations. (We have updated our previous column on the subject to provide more context about Bush's letter and the quotation.)
USA Today reporter Mimi Hall led things off, writing on June 17 that "Bush said that the war was permitted under legislation authorizing force against those who 'planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.'" But the President actually said (in the first case) that "acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 [the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq] is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." (our emphases) The phrase "consistent with" suggests that the attack on Iraq is part of a larger war on terror, but it does not justify the Iraq war as central to the war against Al Qaeda. Similarly, the word "including" means that the perpetrators of 9/11 are among the "international terrorists and terrorist organizations" who are the subject of the certification, not that the action was exclusively targeted at them. Moreover, this was one of many rationales for war listed in the authorizing legislation. By excising most of the quote, Hall completely misrepresents Bush's statement.
The next day, in a report picked up by the Sacramento Bee and Minneapolis Star Tribune, David Westphal of McClatchy Newspapers wrote that "In a letter to Congress as the war began in March 2003, Bush wrote that military action against Iraq was necessary to battle terrorists and terrorist organizations, 'including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.'" This also misrepresents Bush's claim, substituting "necessary" for "consistent with" and making the clause about the perpetrators of Sept. 11 appear far more central than it was.
And on the June 19th edition of CNN's "Capital Gang," Time magazine columnist Margaret Carlson excised a portion of the text from the middle of one of Bush's quotes, which made it appear more damning. She stated that, "in a letter to the Congress justifying the war, this is what Bush said: 'I have also determined that the use of armed forces against Iraq is consistent with taking necessary action against those nations who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11.'"
Is good journalism too much to ask for?
Update 6/24 4:01 AM EST: A column based in part on this piece appears in the Philadelphia Inquirer today.
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Related links:
-Misrepresentations and revisionism in White House response to the 9/11 Commission (Ben Fritz, 6/21/04)
-The strategically ambiguous George W. Bush (Bryan Keefer, 6/12/03)
By Ben Fritz
The latest staff statements from the 9/11 Commission have led to a barrage of criticism suggesting the Bush administration was dishonest in making its case for invading Iraq. The White House has argued that the report does not contradict anything its officials have said in the past, but these claims misrepresent both the staff statements and the case Bush and his aides made for war.
The debate has centered on the conclusion in the 15th staff statement (84K PDF) that while there were contacts between Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government and Al Qaeda, the two never worked together and, to a lesser extent, the 16th staff statement (100K PDF), which stated that 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta never met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague, as the administration claimed before the war.
The White House has repeatedly argued that the Commission staff’s statements were restricted to the issue of whether Iraq was connected to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Appearing on CNBC’s "Capital Report" on June 17, for instance, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "What [the Commission was] addressing was whether or not [Iraq was] involved with 9/11, and there they found no evidence to support that proposition. They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda in other areas, in other ways." And in the extended online edition of a June 18 interview for National Public Radio’s "Morning Edition," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice stated, "As I understand it, the Commission said that there was no operational relationship and that would suggest that the Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11." Similarly, a recent email from the White House to its weekly News Room mailing list carried the headline, "Report Confirms Administration's Views of Al Qaeda/Iraq Ties." It stated that "A 9/11 Commission staff report supports the Bush Administration's longstanding conclusion that there was no evidence of ‘collaboration’ between Iraq and Al Qaeda on the 9/11 attacks against the United States."
In fact, the 9/11 Commission staff looked at whether Al Qaeda and Iraq had worked together as far back as the mid-1990s, as the White House implicitly acknowledged when it noted in the email that "The Commission's investigation does not dispute that contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda occurred." For instance, some of the contacts cited in the 15th staff statement occurred in Sudan in 1994 (84K PDF), seven years before the September 11 attacks. And commission spokesman Al Felzenber told the Washington Post that "We found no evidence of joint operations or joint work or common operations between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government, and that's beyond 9/11."
White House officials have also dissembled about the case they made before the war – particularly whether Iraq had any connection to the September 11 attacks. In the NPR interview, Rice stated, "We’ve always said that we do not assign operational control of Al Aaeda to Iraq and that we do not have any evidence that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11." Similarly, President Bush told reporters on June 17 that, "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda."
But the administration in fact did suggest that Iraq might be linked to 9/11. Vice President Cheney left open the possibility that Iraq was involved with September 11 on several occasions, most recently last week. During his June 17 CNBC appearance, host Gloria Borger asked, "Was Iraq involved [with Al Qaeda in the attack on 9/11]?" Cheney responded, "We don't know. You know, what the commission says is they can't find any evidence of that." It’s the same line Cheney has been taking since major combat operations ended. During a September 14, 2003 interview on NBC’s "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert asked Cheney, "Is there a connection [between Iraq and Al Qaeda]?" The Vice President responded, "We don’t know," and then listed heavily disputed evidence indicating that it was a possibility. In addition, the administration repeatedly made strategically ambiguous statements implying a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
During the CNBC interview, Cheney also dissembled in the following exchange about Mohammed Atta, an Al Qaeda member who was allegedly involved in the September 11 attacks (a witness claimed that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in the spring of 2001, a heavily disputed assertion that the FBI and CIA have questioned):
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
CHENEY: I never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.
But as a White House transcript demonstrates, Cheney said in a December 9, 2001 interview on "Meet the Press" that, "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." (our emphasis)
Before it continues accusing others of misrepresenting the Commisson staff’s statements and revising the history of its case for war in Iraq, the Bush White House should engage in some self-examination.
Update 6/24/04 4:01 AM EST: References to the Commission's statements were updated to specify that they came from the Commission staff. Also, a column based in part on this piece appeared today in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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