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The Media
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"Americans are too broadly under-informed to digest
nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world... Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans
a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don't have to devote
more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations." -- Tom Fenton, former CBS News Foreign Correspondent
PAGE CONTENTS: Tidbits
Publishing
Mary Katherine Goddard The Pulitzer Prize The Iraq War's Pollyanna
Pundits On the Eve of War, A Different View
Tidbits Almost half the newspapers in the world are published in the UnitedStates and Canada. The first female newspaper
editor was Ann Franklin, the sister-in-law of Benjamin franklin. When her son, James, died, she became the editor of The Newport
Mercury On August 22, 1762. The National Enquirer was originally
a horse-racing tip sheet. Ann Franklin was the first woman to hold the title of newspaper editor at "The Newport Mercury" in Newport,
Rhode Island in 1762.
Publishing
Roman author/philosopher Pliny the Elder's Historia naturalis was "published in AD 77", long before
the printing press was invented, which is when most readers picture the start of the publishing process. How would
Pliny the Elder, and those before him, have gone about publishing something? Did they actually "publish" things
back then? Inquiring minds want to know! The meaning of "to publish" has never been chained to
a printing press. It can simply mean "to make something publicly known" or "to issue something for sale or
distribution to the public." In fact, that's how the word "publish" got its start. It comes, ultimately, from the
Latin word pūblicāre, which means "to make public." The word didn't begin to mean, specifically,
"bringing out a book" until the early 16th century. So Pliny and Company most certainly did "publish." But
that still doesn't address how they could have made very many things public without a printing press. For the answer,
lose any Dark Age image you have of tonsured monks laboring in isolation to copy the scriptures and great works of antiquity.
That came later. According to the great 19th-century scholar of typography Theodore L. De Vinne, master printer and
author of The Invention of Printing (1876): "The civilization of ancient Rome did not require printing.
. . . The wants of readers and writers were abundantly supplied by the pen. Papyrus paper was cheap, and scribes were numerous;
Rome had more booksellers than it needed, and books were made faster than they could be sold. The professional scribes were
educated slaves, who, fed and clothed at nominal expense, and organized under the direction of wealthy publishers, were so
efficient in the production of books, that typography, in an open competition, could have offered few advantages." In fact,
De Vinne paints a picture not of a Dark Age book drought, but of an ancient Roman book glut: "Horace,
the elegant and fastidious man of letters, complained that his books were too common, and that they were sometimes found in
the hands of vulgar snobs for whose entertainment they were not written. Martial, the jovial man
of the world, boasted that his books of stinging epigrams were in everybody's hands or pockets. Books were read
not only in the libraries, but at the baths, in the porticoes of houses, at private dinners, and in mixed assemblies." "The
price of books made by slave labor was necessarily low. Martial says that his first book of epigrams was sold in plain binding
for six sesterces, about twenty-four cents of American money [in 1876, now about $4.50]; the same book in sumptuous binding
was valued at five denarii, about eighty cents [now about $15]. He subsequently complained that his thirteenth book was sold
for only four sesterces, about sixteen cents [now about $3]. He frankly admits that half of this sum was profit, but intimates,
somewhat ungraciously, that the publisher Tryphon gave him too small a share." "Some publishers, like Tryphon and the brothers Sosii, acquired
wealth, but there are many indications that publishing was then, as it is now, one of the most speculative kinds of business.
One writer chuckles over the unkind fate that sent so many of the unsold books of rival authors from the warehouses of the
publisher to the shops of grocers and bakers, where they were used to wrap up pastry and spices." by Michael
Himick KnowledgeNews
is brought to you by Every Learner, Inc., an independent small business dedicated to supporting lifelong learners. Copyright
© 2007, Every Learner, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Mary Katherine Goddard
Pioneering newspaper publisher, editor, postmaster
In an era when few women rose to prominence, Mary Goddard was
a striking exception. The Connecticut native became a noted newspaper publisher and editor, and may have been the first American
woman to serve as postmaster, a position she held in Baltimore, Maryland from 1775 until 1789.
Goddard began her career in Providence, Rhode Island, at a print
shop owned by her brother. She later worked with her brother in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where she joined him in the newspaper
business. While in Baltimore, she was credited as being both the editor and the publisher of the "Maryland Journal and Baltimore
Advertiser."
It was that newspaper which, on February 19, 1783, announced
that the British had agreed to recognize the legitimacy of the United States of America -- the first newspaper in the fledgling
country to do so. Previously, Mary Goddard was among the first to report on the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, and in 1777
she published the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence listing its signers.
More about Mary Katherine Goddard:
Mary Katherine Goddard was a pioneer among women
in Baltimore town in the era of the American Revolution. She was a newspaper editor determined to publish the truth as well
as a fighter for the right of women to pursue a career. Born in Connecticut in 1738, she was the daughter of Dr. Giles Goddard
and Sarah Updike Goddard, a woman unusually well educated for that era. Dr. Goddard was the postmaster of New London, explaining
why son William and daughter Mary Katherine also had lifelong involvement with the postal system. William, a few years younger
than his sister, served an apprenticeship in the printing trade. After the death of her husband, Sarah Goddard helped William,
then aged 22, set up a printing press in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1762. The Goddards, mother, brother, and sister, published
Providence's first newspaper, the Providence Gazette. William, a brilliant but erratic man, quit Rhode Island to start a newspaper
in Philadelphia, leaving his sister and mother to run the printing company. After Mrs. Goddard died in 1770, Mary Katherine
joined her brother in Philadelphia.
In 1773, brother and sister came to Baltimore to
start the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, Baltimore's first newspaper. The paper gave Baltimoreans their first
taste of a local newspaper. It charmed, informed, and educated. Among the best newspapers in the colonies, its entertainment
and educational content were typified by the motto the Goddards adopted--a Latin couplet by Horace, which translated meant:
"He carries every point who blends the useful with the agreeable, amusing the reader while he instructs him."
William stayed in town long enough to set up the
newspaper then wandered off to set up a new colonial postal system, leaving Mary Katherine in charge. The mail system helped
spread the newspaper through the colonies and raise its reputation. Goddard continued in the postal service hoping to get
the top job in the continental postal system of the new United States--but was bitterly disappointed when he failed to get
the job when Benjamin Franklin retired.
Mary Katherine's sole editorship of the Journal
was announced May 10, 1775 when the colophon of the Journal was changed to read, "Published by M. K. Goddard, at the Printing-Office
in Market-Street, next Door above Dr. John Stevenson's." She edited the newspaper singlehandedly for most of the period from
1775 to 1785.
Under the able editorship of Mary Katherine Goddard,
the newspaper openly expressed the Americans' yearning for freedom. Mary Katherine gave Baltimoreans news of the beginning
of our war for independence, with reports of the momentous events in Massachusetts of April 19, 1775--the opening salvoes
with the Battles of Concord and Lexington. An editorial of June 14, 1775 proclaimed, "The ever memorable 19th of April gave
a conclusive answer to the questions of American freedom. What think ye of Congress now? That day. . . evidenced that Americans
would rather die than live slaves!"
However, trouble was brewing. In May 1776, Mary
Katherine complained to the Baltimore Committee of Safety about threats and abuse she had received from George Somerville,
who had objected to material in the Journal. The committee sided with her in defense of a free press. Miss Goddard again proved
her patriotism by publishing in January 1777 the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the names
of the signers. Still, troublemakers wanted to control what she printed. Prime among the patriotic organizations in Baltimore
was the Whig Club, a radical group made up of local merchants and tradesmen. Members of the club raided the offices of the
Maryland Journal twice, in 1777 and again in 1779.
The first incident, in February 1777, was occasioned
by the publication in the Journal of two articles by a writer calling himself "Tom Telltruth" and which dealt with an offer
of peace from British commander General Sir William Howe. It was actually a two-part tongue-in-cheek satire written by patriot
and signer of the Declaration of Independence Samuel Chase. The writer expressed gratitude "to the patriotic, virtuous King,
the August, incorruptible Parliament, and wise disinterested ministry of Britain." On March 3, two members of the club called
on William Goddard and demanded to know the author. The radicals were under the impression that William was the editor of
the Journal at this time, although it seems the "Tom Telltruth" pieces were handed to Mary Katherine by her brother, who had
received them from Chase. The club threatened to run Goddard out of state but the Goddards appealed to the state government
in Annapolis and were backed by the legislators and the Whig Club censured.
A similar incident took place in July 1779. The
Goddards published criticisms of General George Washington by General Charles Lee which incensed the radicals and they again
stormed into the printing office. An appeal by William Goddard to Governor Thomas Johnson led to banning of the Whig Club
by the State Assembly, which came out forcefully in favor of freedom of the press and against anarchy.
Relations between brother and sister deteriorated
in the following years, possibly because of financial disagreements. In January 1784, William's name was added to the colophon
of the newspaper and Mary Katherine's name dropped. William continued in charge of the newspaper and his sister remained in
town as a publisher, bookseller, and postmistress. Late in 1784, brother and sister even published rival almanacs for 1785,
which led to William attacking both her almanac and her character. In 1785, she sold her interest in the paper, severing her
last ties with the newspaper she had helped found.
Mary Katherine had been named postmistress of Baltimore
in 1775. She held this position until 1789 when the Postmaster General decreed that the head of the Baltimore postal system
must be a man. Two hundred Baltimore men supported her petition for reinstatement. A female was said to be unsuitable for
the position because the job entailed travel beyond the capacity of a woman--seemingly a sexist statement unless we take into
consideration the miserable condition of the roads of the day. Mary Katherine appealed to the U.S. Senate and to President
George Washington himself, but to no avail.
In 1792, William Goddard relinquished the editorship
of the Journal and went back to Rhode Island, where he entered politics, but his sister stayed in Baltimore. She remained
the proprietor of a bookstore until 1802, after which she retired from business. Mary Katherine Goddard died on August 12,1816,
at the age of 78, a woman of achievement who had taken an important stand for freedom of speech and the rights of women in
the young United States.
Unknown author and/or copyright.
Used without permission, but with the best of intentions.
The Pulitzer Prize
By Denis Mueller
The Pulitzer Prize is the most prestigious award in Journalism. It is given
to a journalist who has shown an unwavering quest for the truth. The irony is that it is named after Joseph Pulitzer, who
showed anything but a pursuit for truth. One of Pulitzer's greatest campaigns, along with the Hearst paper's and the Chicago
Tribune, was to get the United States into a war with Spain. This war, which they successfully instigated, was named the Spanish-American
War and it should serve as no shock to readers that one of the motivations for the newspapers was to sell papers.
In January 1898, the battleship Maine was sent to Cuba. There had been
a revolution going on in Cuba for some time and many Americans felt empathy for the struggling Cubans and Spain was seen as
a corrupt colonial government. At the same time, the United States was eyeing Cuba. It would be a good place for our markets
and from time to time there was talk about Cuba eventually becoming part of the United States.
Well, the Maine exploded under mysterious circumstances and the Hearst,
along with the Pulitzer papers, called for war. "Remember the Maine" became the battle cry of the day. Years and years later
it was determined that the Spanish did not sink the Maine, but an internal explosion caused the accident. However, at the
time, the drumbeats of war flowed throughout the press. It must be stated in fairness that some papers did report that divers
had said that the explosion did not come from a mine or torpedo.
But the New York World reported that a Spanish general on the day that
the Maine was destroyed remarked, "We are going to blow her up mighty soon." Later the World said they had final proof but
failed to tell their readers what that was. The United States was drawn into the war and the tabloids had their war. The charge
that the Rothchilds had bought warships for Spain was completely false. It was a very successful campaign by the press as
most Americans came to believe that Spain had sunk the battleship.
War was good business for Hearst and Pulitzer. Circulation of their papers
took gigantic leaps and everyone was caught up in the drama. The Journal and the World printed extra editions. The newspapers
drove the public into a patriotic frenzy. The mystery around the sinking and lack of conclusive evidence made speculation
the order of the day. Half-truths and faked dispatches left the American public bombarded and reeling from the misinformation.
Sensing the tide of public opinion, a reluctant Congress and a President who really didn't want war were forced into a war.
As critic Oswald Garrison Villard pointed out: "It was by this appeal to
the basest passions of the crowd that Mr. Pulitzer succeeded; like many others he had deliberately stooped for success, and
then, having achieved it, slowly put on garments of righteousness."
Sources: Marcus Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish- American War.
"The Final Word Is Hooray!"
Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna pundits
Weeks after the invasion of Iraq began, Fox News Channel host Brit Hume delivered a scathing speech critiquing the media's
supposedly pessimistic assessment of the Iraq War.
"The majority of the American media who were in a position to comment
upon the progress of the war in the early going, and even after that, got it wrong," Hume complained in the April 2003 speech
(Richmond Times Dispatch, 4/25/04).
"They didn't get it just a little wrong. They got it completely wrong."
Hume was perhaps correct--but almost
entirely in the opposite sense. Days or weeks into the war, commentators and reporters made premature declarations of victory,
offered predictions about lasting political effects and called on the critics of the war to apologize. Three years later,
the Iraq War grinds on at the cost of at least tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Around
the same time as Hume's speech, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas declared (4/16/03): "All of the printed and voiced prophecies
should be saved in an archive. When these false prophets again appear, they can be reminded of the error of their previous
ways and at least be offered an opportunity to recant and repent. Otherwise, they will return to us in another situation where
their expertise will be acknowledged, or taken for granted, but their credibility will be lacking."
Gathered here
are some of the most notable media comments from the early days of the Iraq War.
Declaring Victory
"Iraq
Is All but Won; Now What?"
(Los Angeles Times headline, 4/10/03)
"Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq
is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best
to use it."
(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)
"Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different
from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention."
(NPR's Bob Edwards, 4/28/03)
"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness
on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered
skeptics' complaints."
(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/13/03)
"The only people who think this wasn't a victory
are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."
(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)
"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back."
(Newsweek's
Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)
"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
"The war was
the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and
winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
(Fox News
Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
"Oh, it was breathtaking. I mean I was almost starting to think that we had become inured to everything that we'd seen
of this war over the past three weeks; all this sort of saturation. And finally, when we saw that it was such a just true,
genuine expression. It was reminiscent, I think, of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And just sort of that pure emotional expression,
not choreographed, not stage-managed, the way so many things these days seem to be. Really breath-taking."
(Washington
Post reporter Ceci Connolly, appearing on Fox News Channel on 4/9/03, discussing the pulling down of a Saddam Hussein statue
in Baghdad, an event later revealed to have been a U.S. military PSYOPS operation--Los Angeles Times, 7/3/04)
Mission Accomplished?
"The war winds down, politics heats up.... Picture perfect. Part Spider-Man,
part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific."
(PBS's Gwen
Ifill, 5/2/03, on George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech)
"We're proud of our president. Americans love having
a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like
Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it
out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."
(MSNBC's
Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)
"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the
guys."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)
Neutralizing the Opposition
"Why don't the damn Democrats give the president his day? He won today. He did well today."
(MSNBC's Chris
Matthews, 4/9/03)
"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it's over?
I mean, don't these things sort of lose their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?"
(MSNBC's Chris
Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)
"If image is everything, how can the Democratic presidential hopefuls
compete with a president fresh from a war victory?"
(CNN's Judy Woodruff, 5/5/03)
"It is amazing how thorough
the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that nobody can do
anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him. The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."
(Washington
Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)
Nagging the "Naysayers"
"Now that the
war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?"
(Fox News
Channel's Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)
"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC or at CNN are
going to ever admit just how wrong their negative pronouncements were over the past four weeks."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough,
4/9/03)
"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians
and Hollywood types.... I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess
what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd
mocked the morality of this war....
"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N. weapons inspector
who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, 'The United
States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs, defeated.' Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the
wrong tail, again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich,
and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already:
that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed
critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."
(MSNBC's
Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)
"Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing,
the fact that this war was attacked by the left and so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is
going to have to hang its head for three or four more years."
(Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)
"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein.
To hope for victory meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at least a statue of him, has made
their arguments even harder to defend. Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and for less overtly
political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened.
Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United
States might can set the world right."
(New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)
"Well, the hot story of the
week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully
few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated
so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."
(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)
"Some journalists,
in my judgment, just can't stand success, especially a few liberal columnists and newspapers and a few Arab reporters."
(CNN's
Lou Dobbs, 4/14/03)
"Sean Penn is at it again. The Hollywood star takes out a full-page ad out in the New York Times
bashing George Bush. Apparently he still hasn't figured out we won the war."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 5/30/03)
Cakewalk?
"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.... The president will give an
order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an
emancipation. And I say, bring it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer, 3/30/03)
"I
will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are
you willing to take that wager?"
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)
"It won't take weeks. You know that,
professor. Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will."
(Fox News Channel's
Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)
"There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter of weeks, try to soften
them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going to fold
like that."
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)
"He [Saddam Hussein] actually thought that he could stop
us and win the debate worldwide. But he didn't--he didn't bargain on a two-or three week war. I actually thought it would
be less than two weeks."
(NBC reporter Fred Francis, Chris Matthews Show, 4/13/03)
Weapons of Mass Destruction
NPR's Mara Liasson: Where there was a debate about whether or not Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction and whether
we can find it...
Brit Hume: No, there wasn't. Nobody seriously argued that he didn't have them beforehand. Nobody.
(Fox News Channel, April 6, 2003)
"Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell
made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the
dumb and the desperate could ignore it."
(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)
"Saddam could decide to take
Baghdad with him. One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of 'the green mushroom' over Baghdad--the modern-day
caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his
enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop
him before he can achieve notoriety for all time."
(Newsweek, 3/17/03)
"Chris, more than anything else, real vindication
for the administration. One, credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Two, you know what? There were a lot of terrorists
here, really bad guys. I saw them."
(MSNBC reporter Bob Arnot, 4/9/03)
"Even in the flush of triumph, doubts will
be raised. Where are the supplies of germs and poison gas and plans for nukes to justify pre-emption? (Freed scientists will
lead us to caches no inspectors could find.) What about remaining danger from Baathist torturers and war criminals forming
pockets of resistance and plotting vengeance? (Their death wish is our command.)"
(New York Times' William Safire, 4/10/03)
Copyright 2006 by PENN LLC. All rights reserved. Go ahead and forward this, in its entirety, to others.
On the Eve of War, A Different
View
By Denis Mueller
I recently gave you some of the statements from our members
of the third estate about the war and now I'd like to offer to you excerpts from a speech given on the eve of the invasion
of Iraq by a politician whose views were ridiculed by the same press that reported on the war.
"I believe it is my
patriotic duty to urge a different path to protecting America's security: To focus on al Qaeda, which is an imminent threat,
and to use our resources to improve and strengthen the security and safety our home front and our people with the nations
of the world to contain Saddam Hussein...
Had I been a member of the Senate, I would have voted against the
resolution that authorized the President to use unilateral force against Iraq.
That the President was given open ended
authority to go to war in Iraq resulted from a failure of too many in my party in Washington who was worried about political
positioning for the presidential election.
The stakes are so high, this is not a time for holding back or sheepishly
going along with the herd... If we go to war, I certainly hope the Administrations assumptions are realized, and the conflict
is swift, successful and clean. I certainly hope our armed forces will be welcomed like heroes and liberators in the streets
of Baghdad.
It is possible, however, that events could go differently...Iraq is a divided country, with Sunni, Shia
and Kurdish factions that share both bitter rivalries and access to large quanties of arms. Anti-American feeling will surely
be inflamed among the misguided who chose to see an assult on Iraq as an attack on Islam, or as a means of controlling Iraqi
oil."
Those are the words of Howard Dean and to me that seems like an absolutely accurate portrayal of the events,
which followed the invasion. When Dean suggested, remember this, that the capture of Hussein wouldn't change things that much;
he was ridiculed by the press and politicians from both parties. The events surrounding the decision to go to war will prove
to be fertile ground for future historians but what the press did to Howard Dean should be remembered. He was right and they
were wrong.
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