Lapdogs? You Bet They Were

I had a hard time finding specifically negative reviews about Eric Boehlert's book, Lapdogs (May, 2006). I came across many positive reviews and interviews with Mr. Boehlert from numerous sources all acclaiming him, but not so much criticism. For me, this could be for one of two reasons. One, he is right - the press, throughout the Bush Administration generally, and at the approach to the war in Iraq specifically, were lacking in the charcteristic of courage and in it's stead, placed timidity. Boehlert cited an interview from Harball with Chris Matthews with Jim Lehrer as saying that it was not possible for journalists to forsee the messy aftermath of the Iraqi Liberation Operation. He claimed as well that its not fair to charge reporters with the mishap since the rhetoric coming out of the White House (which according to Ms. Leighly is the primary source for official news) kept referring to the upcoming war as "Liberation" and not "Occupation":

Lehrer: I do. The word "occupation," keep in mind, Chris, was never mentioned in the run-up to the war. It was "liberation." So as a consequence, those of us in journalism never even looked at the issue of occupation.

Matthews: Because?


Lehrer: Because it just didn't occur to us. We weren't smart enough to do it. I agree. I think it was a dereliction of our -- in retrospective.

The second reason there is not much negative reviews on Lapdogs could be found in the review written by Michael Getler (who Boehlert actually quotes as a protagonist) for the Washington Post:

"Unfortunately, Lapdogs may be easy for some to write off: It has flaws that too often overwhelm the valuable research and provocative analysis that Boehlert has assembled...


One obvious failing is that a book by a journalist attacking the press ought to have included some responses from editors and reporters who disagree with Boehlert's conclusions. There is basically none of that here. "Another defect is that Lapdogs too frequently appears overtly political; the book is written as though a cadre of Bill Clinton's defenders were its editors."

The basic premise here is that the book was written not so
much as a professional criticism of the media, but more of a polemic. Getler goes on to say that the claims that Boehlert make assume that he knew what was going on in the minds of the journalists and their supervisors. Getler retorts and says that those editors may not have had any deliberate motives in mind, but could have just made honest mistakes:

"One big problem, however -- especially at this newspaper -- was that these challenging stories were far too often run inside the paper rather than on the front page. Other stories that challenged the whole premise of an invasion were simply missed or minimized.

"So does that mean that the editors who made those calls were pro-Bush or cowed by the aftermath of Sept. 11, fiery right-wing bloggers, conservative broadcasters and a mean White House press strategy? Or did some editors simply exercise poor news judgment or lack the experience or determination to make sure that nothing was left unsaid, unchallenged or uncovered? Or were they convinced that a war with Iraq was coming and were too focused on getting ready to cover it? "


He adds to this the fact that the general atmosphere at the time was that the Iraqi Administration under Hussein was something insidious and was thought dangerous for over a decade. Reporters might have went along with it because they were not ready to start trying to push off the inevitable war with Iraq.

At the end, though, Getler praises the book and says that "maybe something else was indeed going on in America's newsrooms. If so, Boehlert's book will prove to be the most well-researched and well-argued one I've yet seen about the darker side of why the press failed."