"Rediscovered Optimism Puts the United Back Into USA"

A fine column by David Brooks in today's London Times:

Let the over-exuberance recommence! Washington is in the grip of a series of mood swings. An insanely negative tone prevailed in the war coverage here at the beginning of this week, but now it is the hawks who feel justified in gloating.

If you had read the American press last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, you would have thought the media analysts were covering Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. There were ludicrous Vietnam comparisons, rampant quagmire forebodings and learned deconstructions of What Went Wrong.

Of course the press is generally over-critical, as part of our constant and pathetic efforts to prove that we are smarter than whoever it is we happen to be covering. But in this case the pundits seemed shocked that the Iraqi Gestapo actually had the audacity to shoot back. And the gloom was reinforced by the anti-war sentiment that prevails in the press rooms. Every flaw in the war-plan set off another round of we-told-you-so gloating....

(Thanks, Mark.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 04/04/03 09:03:08 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.