"The same people who believed the first story refused to believe the second, and vice versa. In a sense, they believed or refused to believe each story before it was published—even before it had occurred. What mattered was whether the story supported or undermined their view of the war."
- George Packer, referring to Scott Beauchamp and O'Hanlon/Pollack
I generally like George Packer, but it isn't a question of "believing" one or the other. Like many who get sucked into the beltway vortex, he reduces to politics to a kind of catechism, easily ridiculed as dogmatic by journalists and pundits who imagine themselves inhabiting a higher realm of reason.
Packer et al will say "a pox on both your unthinking houses, liberals and wingnuts, why don't you wait until the facts are in before coming to a conclusion??"
But the facts are always rolling in from a place like Iraq. No wonder pundits write that they are paralyzed by indecision about what to do in Iraq. There's always going to be a reason to put off leaving, to find some slender reed of hope.
Which is another way of supporting the Bush policy wholesale. But that would be partisan.
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