Nice Polite Republicans

I was happy this morning when my local NPR affiliate radio station decided to play the Petraeus/Crocker hearing on their main station, instead of the low-power alternate that barely covers half the city. Allowing people to hear what the administration's representatives are telling the people's representatives about Iraq seems like the kind of public service expected of those licensed to use the public airwaves. More, it's what we ought to expect from public radio.

I was astonished, however, once the national NPR feed began, and host Neal Conan introduced his first companion for the pre-hearing warm-up discussion. Joining Neal to provide background on the situation in Iraq and help us understand the context of Petraeus' testimony was Michael Gordon, military correspondent for the New York Times.

Those on the conservative side of the fence might assume I was thrilled. A reporter from the 'liberal' New York Times, on 'liberal' National Public Radio: talk about your 'liberal media bias.' Hardly.

Michael Gordon's name appeared right alongside Judith Miller's on many of the pre-war articles that helped get us into this mess. He unskeptically reported many of the administration's claims in the hype campaign, and shares the by-line on the infamous 'aluminum tubes' story that helped drive the "mushroom cloud" theme. That story, sourced to unnamed administration sources, was used by Dick Cheney on national TV to bolster the credibility of the nuclear scare tactic.

The incident is perhaps the most crystalline example of the way the administration played gullible journalists, in order to sell their war to the American public. And Michael Gordon was right there.

But, you're thinking, perhaps he learned a lesson from that embarrassment. Perhaps, once bitten, having believed administration sources too easily before, he's grown more questioning. Perhaps now, he is not merely chief Pentagon stenographer, but actually a chief military correspondent?

Sadly, no. Just this week, Michael Gordon's byline appears again (without his old friend Judy) on a story that is, as Josh Marshall describes it, "remarkably credulous." For example:

The most comprehensive and up-to-date military statistics show that American forces have made some headway toward a crucial goal of protecting the Iraqi population. Data on car bombs, suicide attacks, civilian casualties and other measures of the bloodshed in Iraq indicate that violence has been on the decline, though the levels generally remain higher than in 2004 and 2005.

But the data, which was gathered by American military officials in Baghdad and which include the most recent figures for August, raise a series of important questions. Can the drop be sustained over the coming months, especially with the approach of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month in which violence has often increased?

Actually, the figures raise still other questions, like, how the hell did they get those numbers? Didn't the GAO just come out with a contradictory report?

Gordon acknowledges that:

Critics of the White House have pointed to the Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday, which asserted that it was unclear whether sectarian violence had decreased. The report cited data on daily, nationwide attacks that had been assembled by Gen. David H. Petraeus’s command. But American military officials note that the G.A.O. assessment did not take account of August, when the most significant gains in reducing violence materialized not only in Baghdad, but also across Iraq.

This morning on the radio he gave Neil that 'they didn't count August' spin, also. I was appalled. As Greg Sergeant points out, another reporter, James Glanz, in Gordon's own newspaper had a story earlier this week based on numbers from Iraqi officials showing civilian deaths rose sharply in August.

Compare Gordon's phrasing (The most comprehensive and up-to-date ... statistics show that American forces have made some headway [emphais mine]) with the start of an article from Karen DeYoung, appearing the day before in the Washington Post:

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Last month, Gordon was uncritically reporting other administration numbers, this time about Iranian involvement in Iraq. It seems to be his strong suit.

Greg Sergeant gives us his analysis of Gordon's approach:

Now, slicing and dicing these numbers gets endlessly complex, and the answers often depend on which sets of numbers are being compared. But in this case, it's pretty clear what happened. Glanz compared the numbers Iraqi gave him for August with the numbers from July, and concluded that from one month to the next, civilian deaths had gone up.

Gordon, by contrast, relying on American military statistics and Iraqi ones, compared August's numbers with those of December 2006. This showed a decline, he reports. Of course, December 2006 represented an all-time high in violence, he also notes in the piece.

Which methodology do you think is a better way to assess the success of the "surge"?

In his presentation on NPR this morning, Gordon showed no doubt about the quality or appropriateness of the numbers he had from the Pentagon on Iraq, and indeed, he belittled the GAO report for not having counted August. By the time he was finished, I wasn't sure I needed to actually listen to Petraeus, since I felt Gordon had already delivered his key points to me.

Which leads to the question, why was he on the radio?

Surely there are other reporters or informed individuals NPR could have had appear with Neal to introduce the hearings. Why this guy? Why a guy whose journalistic objectivity seems questionable at best? Why did the people at NPR chose Michael Gordon, and not, say, Karen DeYoung? Or someone from the Associated Press? (By the way, Associated Press reports also suggest violence increased in August.)

Or, since everyone is pretty sure that Petraeus is going to suggest we stay engaged in Iraq, why not someone on the record as suggesting we leave? It is allegedly 'liberal bias' radio, after all - how much would it hurt to have someone providing a set of alternate perspectives before Petraeus and Crocker report? What purpose was served by the editorial decision to choose Michael Gordon's perspective for air time?

I've long since given up hoping for the national NPR organization to present much left-wing perspective, but they usually do a better job of cushioning their pro-administration perpectives. Though no one can seriously believe that Cokie Roberts and Juan Williams are unbiased voices, they are certainly nice and polite (and who doesn't love Cokie's remembrances of growing up among the elites in DC?)

But Michael "Aluminum Tubes" Gordon? Puh-lease! I might as well just turn on the Faux News Channel.