Another Reason to Hate the MSM

Greg Sargent at TPM has a lengthy, but worthwhile, post on the media and surge and the buildup to Petraeus (sic) report. It's not pretty.

Kevin Drum has a provocative post up in which he concludes that the liberal blogosphere and liberal establishment were badly "outplayed" by Petraeus' PR "blitzkrieg." Kevin reaches this sobering conclusion: "Even though there's been no discernible political progress, minimal reconstruction progress, and apparently no genuine decrease in violence, he's managed to convince an awful lot of people that the first doesn't matter, the second is far more widespread than it really is, and the third is the opposite of reality."

Meanwhile, Atrios adds that part of the blame lies with our elected leaders, who "have chosen to play along."

Without discounting any of these conclusions, I think it's necessary to add another explanation for the apparent success of Petraeus' PR push: The media, in some cases out of incompetence and in others by design, helped him get away with it, and indeed actively enabled it.

Then he lays out specifics and tries the case. Verdict: guilty.