A January 23 New York Times column by Bob Herbert distilled the message of Barack Obama's nascent administration as "No more crazy wars." FAIR associate Norman Solomon's reaction (AfterDowningStreet.org, 1/26/09): "I wish." Lamenting the current "narrowness of political vision--while news outlets are reporting that the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is expected to 'as much as double this year to 60,000 troops'"--Solomon recalls the Lyndon Baines Johnson inaugural speech that "foreshadowed the massive slaughtering of people in Vietnam":

Pundits and congressional leadership nodded sagely as the president cited the threat of Communism and proceeded to boost U.S. troop levels in Vietnam. Similar nodding--and nodding off--is now underway as the president cites the threat of terrorism and prepares to boost U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan....

Lyndon Johnson's capacity to deliver on hopes for a Great Society shattered on the jagged steel of a war that, year after year, few pundits were willing to acknowledge was crazy....

Several weeks ago, a Bob Herbert column made a practical moral argument: "Sending thousands of additional men and women (some to die, some to be horribly wounded) on a fool's errand in the rural, mountainous guerrilla paradise of Afghanistan would be madness."

Days after the inauguration, the news has included a fresh spate of stories about Afghan civilians killed by U.S. missiles. Hamid Karzai, in effect the president of Kabul, declared that the Pentagon’s frequent killing of civilians in Afghanistan "is strengthening the terrorists." And so it goes.

Solomon's reminder to today's journalists: "Escalation of a crazy war will make it crazier. Pretending otherwise will not make it any less insane--or any less destructive." Listen to the FAIR radio show CounterSpin: "Norman Solomon on Obama's Inauguration" (1/23/09)

Finding it "more than ironic" and even "disturbing and more than a little sad," Norman Solomon (Creators Syndicate, 1/17/09) points out that "at the same time that the United States is inaugurating a new presidency that marks the crashing of a racial barrier at the White House," the African-American-centric News & Notes--a show "actually staffed by African-Americans"--is being canned by National Public Radio:

One of the ironies is that NPR, an outfit which many people regard as a bastion of wide-ranging discourse, has an internal atmosphere so corporate that many journalists there are afraid to talk publicly--to journalists!

Check this out from the Current article [on the cancellation] : "Several employees did not return phone calls requesting interviews or declined to discuss their situations out of fear that they would be fired or lose their severance packages."

While admitting that News & Notes "wasn't the most adventurous program on the airwaves," Solomon explains that "it did meaningfully expand the diversity of NPR programming on a daily basis"--and "now these attempts to diversify have been given pink slips." To Solomon's ears, "rhetoric aside, the priorities for programming can be heard loud and clear."

See the FAIR magazine Extra!: "How Public Is Public Radio?: A Study of NPR's Guest List" (5-6/04) by Steve Rendall & Daniel Butterworth

FAIR founder Jeff Cohen and longtime FAIR associate Norman Solomon have compiled their 17th annual list of "P.U.-litzer Prizes" (OpEd News, 12/18/08). Among this year's "stinkiest media performances":

HOT FOR OBAMA PRIZE -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews

This award sparked fierce competition, but the cinch came on the day Obama swept the Potomac Primary in February--when Chris Matthews spoke of "the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."

BEYOND PARODY PRIZE--Fox News

In August, a FoxNews.com teaser for the O'Reilly Factor program said: "Obama bombarded by personal attacks. Are they legit? Ann Coulter comments."...

GUTTER BALL PUNDITRY AWARD -- Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball

In program after program during the spring, Matthews repeatedly questioned whether Obama could connect with "regular" voters--"regular" meaning voters who are white or "who actually do know how to bowl." He once said of Obama: "This gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody. But the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder."

And there's plenty more malodorous journalism to be found in FAIR's extensive archive on corporate news coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Recalling that "during the mid-1960s, the conventional wisdom was what everyone with a modicum of smarts kept saying: higher U.S. troop levels in Vietnam were absolutely necessary," FAIR associate Norman Solomon is distressed to find (AntiWar.com, 12/9/08) that "today, the conventional wisdom is that higher U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan are absolutely necessary." Responding to news that "'the Pentagon is planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan' within the next 18 months," Solomon writes that

right now, the basic ingredients of further Afghan disasters are in place--including, pivotally, a dire lack of wide-ranging debate over Washington's options. In an atmosphere reminiscent of 1965, when almost all of the esteemed public voices concurred with the decision by newly elected President Lyndon Johnson to deploy more troops to Vietnam, the tenet that the United States must send additional troops to Afghanistan is axiomatic in U.S. news media, on Capitol Hill, and--as far as can be discerned--at the top of the incoming administration.

Solomon finds that "bedrock faith in the Pentagon's massive capacity for inflicting violence is implicit in the nostrums from anointed foreign-policy experts. The echo chamber is echoing: The Afghanistan war is worth the cost that others will pay."

See the FAIR publication Extra! Update: "‘Accidents Will Happen: Excusing Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan" (8/07) by Peter Hart

FAIR associate Norman Solomon pens (Columbus Free Press, 10/13/08) a "Requiem for the Bailout Storyline":

More recent events should not be allowed to obscure the reality that the news media played a pivotal role in stampeding the country into a bailout that was unwise and unjust.... (more...)

FAIR associate Norman Solomon tells Real News viewers (9/29/08) of lessons to be drawn from corporate U.S. media's non-coverage of what was big news overseas during the run up to war on Iraq—U.S. spies used the U.N. arms inspection process to identify future bombing targets and track Saddam Hussein's movements (more...)