'Success?' 'Progress?' Really?

UPDATED

The San Antonio Express-News rips apart Bush's absurd talking point on the GREAT NEWS about Britain's drawdown of forces in southern Iraq:

President Bush declared the announced drawdown of British troops in Iraq "a sign of success," a message echoed by Vice President Cheney. If so, then it raises the obvious question of what an increase of 21,000 American combat troops signals.

The answer is that success or failure in Iraq is far more complex than the bromides the Bush administration has ladled out to the American people. And the unwillingness or inability to speak frankly is a primary source of public skepticism about the Bush White House and its war strategy.

Indeed.

Yet, numerous news outlets are swallowing the administration spin hook, sinker and line.

It comes as no surprise that Fox "News" plays it Bush-style all the way.

But a number of local news outlets seem only too willing to absorb the Bush spin into the way they sell the story to their viewers and readers.

The Baltimore Sun declares this development a "turning point," which is a phrase the Bush administration has used extensively to make the case that the occupation of Iraq is getting better, not worse.

The Bowling Green News states unequivocally that the British pullout is due to "Iraq progress."

In an analysis piece, the Orlando Sentinel headlines Dick Cheney's cheery assessment.

And News 12 in Providence, Rhode Island joins dozens, if not hundreds, of other outlets in passing along the AP's headline White House: Reported British pullout `sign of success.'

Clearly, this is the administration's desired result. No sooner did the news break, than Cheney, Tony Snow and Condi Rice were in front of cameras and microphones announcing the great news about our only real ally's decision to reduce its force of 7,000 troops by nearly 25 percent. All this, as the News-Express points out, while the U.S. is increasing its troop strength by more than 15 percent. Truly, the question is, if Great Britain's troop reduction indicates the success of its mission in Basra, what conclusions can we draw about the Bush administration's strategy in other parts of Iraq?

I won't hold my breath waiting for an honest answer to that one.

UPDATE

Dan Froomkin calls the Bush administration's response what it is: A Ludicrous Attempt at Spin.

After laboring so hard to bring a modicum of realism to its pronouncements on Iraq --think of President Bush repeatedly acknowledging that he's not happy with the situation there -- the White House took a big PR hit yesterday as its attempt to spin the British troop-withdrawal announcement as a sign of success was widely greeted with howls of derision.

Unlike some of the White House's past assertions -- that were simply negated by the facts -- this one was affirmatively laughable. It would be Orwellian, but only if anyone took it seriously.

The problem is, quite a few people did take it seriously, but Froomkin focuses on the reaction of major outlets such as CNN and his own Washington Post.

Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker write in The Washington Post: "As the British announced the beginning of their departure from Iraq yesterday, President Bush's top foreign policy aide proclaimed it 'basically a good-news story.' Yet for an already besieged White House, the decision was doing a good job masquerading as a bad-news story.

[...]

How effective was a full day of White House spin on the press corps? For once, not effective at all.

Here's Ed Henry on CNN at 9 a.m.: "You know, this is a blow to the White House no matter how they try to play this."

And here's Suzanne Malveaux on CNN eight hours later: "On the political side, it's a blow to President Bush, who has repeatedly said setting timetables for withdrawing troops would only embolden the terrorists.

"While Mr. Bush is trying to convince the American people the war is worth it, the perception is his closest allies have concluded otherwise. . . .

"Now, the Bush administration is under even more pressure to answer the question -- when will our own troops be coming home?

"It's a question they still can't answer."

As illustrated above, there were dozens, if not hundreds of news outlets around the country whose reactions to the administration's spin ranged from not very skeptical to completely credulous. Many of these were local newspapers and television stations who ran a version of the story from the Associated Press verbatim, including the headline White House: Reported British pullout `sign of success.'

The truth is that in the battle for public opinion, the reaction of elite journalists at America's premier news institutions often competes with the cut-and-paste reporting of smaller outlets at the local level. Frankly, the relatively direct appeal to local news consumers is precisely what Bush meant in 2003 when he famously derided the elite media as a "filter."

After a summer of sliding polls and an autumn of tough questions in Congress, the White House is hoping to boost public support by convincing Americans that the cynical national press is getting the story wrong. Last week President George W. Bush himself complained about the national media’s fixation on bad news, and made a show of going around them by granting interviews with local TV reporters. “I’m mindful of the filter through which some news travels,” he told one interviewer, “and sometimes you just have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the people.”

It's all well and good that the Washington Post, CNN and other news powerhouses smelled a rat and identified Bush's happy talk for what it was, but the happy talk had already had its intended effect. Far more people get their news from, and have their opinions influenced by, local tv, radio and newspapers, rather than washingtonpost.com.