War Is Fare for Commentators

By: Dave Astor When columnists and cartoonists comment about a possible U.S. strike against Iraq, there seems to be room for more diversity of opinion than when these creators tried to express themselves in the months immediately following 9/11.

Back then, criticizing Bush-administration policies "was considered not patriotic," said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokeswoman Hodan Hassan. But she praised newspaper editorial pages for offering "a wider range of thought" in recent months -- and expects this to continue if war with Iraq breaks out.

Of course, columnists and cartoonists still get some criticism. For instance, Association of American Editorial Cartoonists President Bruce Plante said his Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press cartoons supporting the war on terrorism draw positive reader reaction, but his cartoons questioning the possible war with Iraq -- which he sees as unrelated to the war on terrorism -- elicit angry responses.

Cal Thomas, whose Op-Ed feature runs in 550-plus papers via Tribune Media Services, said reader reaction to his columns has been "hugely positive." He noted: "The approach I've taken has been largely supportive of the Bush administration's policy to disarm and/or remove Saddam Hussein. To those who believe it will produce a terrible response, my view is we're going to be attacked no matter what, so we might as well be proactive and pre-emptive rather than reactive."

But some of Thomas' commentary on Iraq and what he describes as "the threat to American values by radical Islam" has been criticized by groups such as CAIR. Thomas said these groups are "aggressively attempting to intimidate certain columnists by engaging in letter-writing campaigns to newspapers and personal visits with editors to persuade them to remove such voices from the papers."

Hassan responded: "We've never tried to get people fired. We want newspaper editors and columnists to take the concerns of Muslims into account" -- and to not stereotype or generalize about Muslims. "We're exercising our First Amendment rights just like they [editors and columnists] are exercising their First Amendment rights," Hassan said, adding that other religious and ethnic groups do the same thing.

Reflecting a Wariness for War

National Society of Newspaper Columnists President Mike Leonard noted that many Americans are wary of a war with Iraq and appreciate a columnist voicing that sentiment when so few politicians are strongly doing so. The Herald-Times of Bloomington, Ind., columnist has done an occasional piece questioning U.S. Iraq policy -- and has received mostly positive reaction from a readership that includes many liberals but also "plenty of bedrock Hoosier conservatives."

Leonard did add that it takes "courage" for columnists to question the Bush administration's Iraq policy. He said those who do so risk being called "unpatriotic and even traitorous to American men and women fighting overseas. I wish more people would understand that you can support the warrior while not being in favor of the conflict."

Some liberal columnists end up self-censoring, while others can get censored by their papers. Leonard recalled that columnists in Oregon and Texas lost their jobs after 9/11 for criticizing President Bush.

Bruce Tinsley has used his "Mallard Fillmore" comic to tweak the media for covering Bush in a negative way. "They portray any military position taken by a Republican president as warmongering," said Tinsley, whose conservative strip runs in 400-plus papers via King Features Syndicate. "But I'm not personally sold on this war. I'm disappointed that the administration hasn't been more forthcoming on the reasons for a war."

Tinsley, however, has not expressed his doubts in "Mallard" -- with one reason being that he feels those doubts are already finding expression in many editorial cartoons and other media commentary.

Thomas said many columnists have been predictable. "Those who see a threat to American interests favor U.S. action against Saddam," he noted. "More liberal columnists want to trust the United Nations and continue to view war for any purpose through the prism of the Vietnam War."

Speaking of previous wars, do commentators have the right to be in favor of attacking Iraq if they avoided serving in the military themselves? "Everyone has the right to whatever opinion they hold," replied Leonard, though he added that it can be troubling when "people who never served in the military themselves are pushing us into war."

What is the function of an editorial cartoonist and columnist at a time like this?

"To try to make readers think about what we're getting into," said Plante.

Leonard added that an "informed citizenry" needs to hear all the facts when thinking about something as important as whether or not to attack Iraq. Columnists, he said, can help analyze whether such an action is warranted.

Thomas said: "The role of a columnist is to help refine and articulate the policy in which he or she believes in hopes of helping the reader to better understand that policy."

Can a columnist or cartoonist change readers' minds about something like the possible war with Iraq?

"I think we can," said Plante.

"We have the potential to be moderately influential," added Leonard.

"I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if I didn't think there was a remote possibility I could change minds," said Tinsley.

And Thomas noted: "Whether the columnist has an impact on public opinion -- or administration opinion -- is difficult to say and probably impossible to prove, except for the occasional letter to the editor or columnist which affirms such attempts at persuasion have been successful."

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Evaluating Iraq-Related Coverage

Columnists Discuss How Newspapers Are Doing

What kind of job have newspapers done covering the possible war with Iraq? E&P Online contacted columnists of various ideologies to get their thoughts. Ten conservatives, nine liberals, and five centrists were e-mailed or phoned, with more liberals than conservatives responding. Here are the comments -- in alphabetical order -- of Arianna Huffington, Mike Leonard, Ruben Navarrette, Leonard Pitts Jr., Richard Reeves, Norman Solomon, and George Will.

* Arianna Huffington of Tribune Media Services said: "My biggest problem with the press coverage on Iraq is the lack of reporting on potential casualties. Sitting on a desk somewhere in the Pentagon is a computer printout listing projected American casualties for a range of Iraq invasion scenarios. Unfortunately, these vital figures are the only numbers that haven't been part of the war debate -- or the press coverage."

Huffington noted that there have been estimates about the cost of the war, how much oil prices may rise, the number of troops deployed, and how long the troops might remain in Iraq. "But no one in the Bush administration is talking about how many of our soldiers will be sent home in body bags," she added. "And the press has been far too reluctant to ask: 'Mr. President, how many young Americans are going to die?' Will the deaths number in the hundreds, as was the case in Desert Storm and as would be again if Saddam collapsed like a cheap umbrella? Or will they be closer to the 10,000 to 50,000 some experts have predicted?"

Huffington continued: "The question of casualties is all the more important given the weight attached to polls showing that over 85% of Americans support an invasion of Iraq. This purported groundswell of public opinion is being dropped like an old-fashioned 'dumb' bomb to kill dissent on both sides of the political aisle. Let's set aside for a moment the ludicrousness of basing our national security policy on the shoot-from-the-lip responses of a person who has been interrupted in the middle of dinner" by a pollster. "The fact is the number of Americans in favor of going to war with Iraq plummets when the prospect of 'thousands of American casualties' is added to the question."

Huffington concluded: "We are told by the proponents of invading Iraq that it's a bold step necessary to prevent future casualties. But in order to make an informed decision on the war, shouldn't the people also be told how many present casualties we will have to suffer in order to avoid these future ones?"

* Mike Leonard, president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and a columnist for The Herald-Times in Bloomington, Ind., commented: "I think the coverage has been too favorable to the Bush administration, especially when you take into account what's being said by our allies and the rest of the world about going to war. Allies oppose it or are being dragged along kicking and screaming."

* Ruben Navarrette of The Dallas Morning News and Washington Post Writers Group said the only paper other than his own that he has read for war coverage is The New York Times. "I tend to find its tone to be more reliant on U.N. inspections and more willing to believe that Bush and the hawks are determined to go to war no matter what those inspections uncover. I'd say it's more of an anti-war -- or anti-solo war -- tone. It certainly suggests the U.S. shouldn't act unilaterally, only through an international coalition of countries or better yet, through the U.N. I don't think the coverage misses much."

What about war-time restrictions on journalists? "Censorship is always a problem, but it's more likely to come from this most secretive of administrations than to be self-imposed," said Navarrette. "I don't think we'll ever return, in the post-Vietnam era, to the time when someone would do what 'Scotty' Reston did during the Cuban Missile Crisis -- sit on a story for the good of national security and U.S. interests. That's sooo over. With boomers in charge, the tendency is to assume the government is lying and go from there."

The generation of a reporter is relevant, Navarrette said: "Far more important than whether they're liberal or conservative is what generation they belong to. The remaining journalists of the World War II generation might, in covering a war, be more inclined to assume that our country's leaders think they're acting in the best interests of the country. But the vast majority of journalists are boomers, and they're more likely to doubt whatever they're told and assume the worst. They can't shake off the demons of Vietnam, and the residue of names like McNamara and Kissinger. The few Gen Xers out there, I hope, will be willing to look at war against Iraq through their own lens without that baggage."

* Leonard Pitts Jr. of The Miami Herald and Tribune Media Services said newspapers have been mostly thorough and objective in writing about the buildup to a possible war with Iraq. "Maybe they have been a little bit lax in covering the anti-war movement," he added. "There's a tendency to slough it off and treat it as a sideshow." Pitts did note that there seemed to be "some improvement" in newspaper coverage of this month's anti-war demonstrations vs. last October's.

If a war occurs, Pitts sees "battles between military censors and newspapers." He also said newspapers, like society in general, tend to "rally around the government in times of war. There's a sensitivity toward not writing anything that jeopardizes the government's aims or, especially, the safety of the troops. But while that's important, newspapers can't abdicate their responsibility to be the askers of skeptical questions -- especially when there's so much doubt internationally and in this country about whether this war is necessary."

* Richard Reeves of Universal Press Syndicate said coverage has been "generally pro-war." One reason, he noted, is that "war is a great story -- interesting, challenging, and great for journalists' careers. It's like military leaders whose careers are usually advanced when there's a war. To get medals, you need war."

Meanwhile, the media are missing some things, according to Reeves. He said, for instance, that there should be more focus on how President Bush is personalizing his anger at Saddam Hussein into a need for war.

If there is a war, Reeves is pessimistic about how the media will perform. "We'll cover only what they let us see," he said, adding that the U.S government and military will put a positive spin on everything. If the truth eventually comes out, Reeves added, it will be "too late" -- as when it was learned that the Patriot missiles that supposedly did so well during the Persian Gulf War didn't do well at all.

To illustrate this no-bad-news military mindset, Reeves cited what he calls "Kelly's Law" -- learned when the columnist was in Honduras during the Iran-contra era of the 1980s. "There was a roadblock set up by Honduran soldiers, and I was the first car in line," he said. "Next to me was a U.S. Army truck driven by a Sgt. Kelly. Two C-47 planes came flying over the mountains, and 20 paratroopers dropped from each plane. 'What's that about?,' I asked Kelly. 'What's what about?,' he replied. 'The paratroopers!,' I said. 'What paratroopers?,' he answered."

* Creators Syndicate columnist Norman Solomon -- co-author, with Reese Erlich, of the just-released Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You (Context Books) -- said: "While reporters have produced some exceptionally thorough newspaper stories, the overall effect of the coverage has been to largely echo the assumptions holding sway along Pennsylvania Avenue. After Democratic Party leaders on Capitol Hill capitulated to the war agenda in October, the flow of debate narrowed in the daily press."

Solomon added: "You can find examples of well-done stories about the apparent effects of depeleted uranium weaponry used against Iraq during the Gulf War, or about the deadly effects of U.S.-led sanctions during the past dozen years, but those islands of independent-minded journalism have been drowned by the oceans of official-source stories pouring out of Washington. And I'm very critical of the failure of the U.S. media, with some exceptions, to convey the simple reality that the people who will suffer most from a U.S. attack are human beings and not abstractions."

If war does break out? "Past experience tells us that once the Pentagon's missiles start to fly, the space for critical assessments and dissent in U.S. news media quickly contracts," said Solomon. "Journalists get caught up in the war fever -- their careers may benefit, but journalism suffers. So do a lot of human beings whose humanity doesn't make it into print."

And many journalists will pull their punches, Solomon added. "In contrast to state censorship, which is usually easy to recognize, self-censorship by journalists is rarely out in the open. And as they avoid talking publicly about constraints that limit their work, journalists in effect routinely engage in self-censorship about self-censorship. In the highly competitive media environment, you don't need to be a rocket scientist or a social scientist to know that dissent does not boost careers. This is especially true in times of war. The rewards of going along to get along are clear; so are the hazards of failure to toe the line."

* George Will of the Washingtton Post Writers Group is pleased with U.S. newspaper coverage. "I think it has been amazingly thorough," he said, noting that he doesn't think any major questions or issues have been missed.

Will added that this thoroughness has occurred while "newspapers have been used by two groups of people: the Bush administration sending signals to Saddam Hussein, and opponents of the war -- in timeless Washington fashion -- using the press as a bulletin board for their anxieties."

All this, he said, during what has been a "long, stately march to what is in essence an optional war."

Will newspapers be more supportive if a war happens? "There will certainly be more support in the country - a rallying around the flag," said Will.

And what will coverage be like by U.S. correspondents in Iraq? "It wouldn't be like Ernie Pyle in a Jeep right behind the troops," Will said -- noting that, with "precision weapons" and other tools of modern warfare, it can be "hard to know where the front line is."

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Bill Mauldin Remembered

Admired by Vets and Cartoonists

In 1999, two septuagenarian legends spoke at the National Cartoonists Society meeting in San Antonio. First to the podium was "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, followed by editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin.

Mauldin -- who died Jan. 22 at age 81 -- would outlive Schulz by nearly three years. But on that spring day in Texas, Schulz was healthy and Mauldin was visibly struggling with the Alzheimer's disease that would eventually kill him.

Mauldin spoke haltingly, often losing his train of thought and lapsing into long silences. So Schulz approached the podium to help. He tried to complete some of Mauldin's sentences, and spoke glowingly about the two-time Pulitzer winner's work.

Schulz that day embodied two of the groups -- cartoonists and World War II veterans -- who greatly admired Mauldin.

World War II vets (of which Schulz was one) loved Mauldin for his weary everyman soldiers Willie and Joe. And cartoonists admired Mauldin for his art, humor, and pointed commentary. It was not surprising that Schulz would have Snoopy offer a root-beer toast to Mauldin in many of his Veterans Day comics -- the originals of which he would often send Mauldin as gifts. And the cartoonists in San Antonio expressed their regard for Mauldin by encouraging him as he attempted to speak, showing him dog-eared copies of his books they had brought, and talking about the impact of his work.

Mauldin did manage to make a few coherent comments at the meeting (which also featured a speech by another famous cartoonist, Jeff MacNelly, who would later die). "I decided after being in the Army for a short while that it needed reforming, so I set about reforming it," said Mauldin. "General Patton wanted me thrown into jail, but I had too many low-ranking friends!"

His fellow "low-ranking" World War II vets were among the thousands of people who wrote or visited Mauldin the past six months at a Newport Beach, Calif., nursing facility (Syndicate World, Jan. 9).

Mauldin was by no means perfect. He could be gruff and crusty, he battled alcoholism, and his personal life was marked by more than one divorce. But he was a courageous nonconformist, whether it involved bucking military brass or fighting for ownership of his cartoons.

Mauldin, at a 1985 Newspaper Features Council meeting in San Francisco, recalled trying to get syndicated during World War II. When his agent told him he couldn't own his own characters, Maudlin insisted upon, and got, that right -- which was unusual in the 1940s. The "price," he said, was a less lucrative contract.

Mauldin's most famous post-World-War II drawing was his Chicago Sun-Times cartoon showing the Lincoln Memorial's statue of Abraham Lincoln grieving over President Kennedy's assassination.

That approach eventually became overused -- as when many cartoonists drew the Cat in the Hat crying over the death of Dr. Seuss and the Statue of Liberty weeping after 9/11.

Speakers at the 1993 Association of American Editorial Cartoonists meeting in Austin, Texas, spoofed all this by showing several fake obituary cartoons of the future -- including one of "Mr. Peanut" shedding a tear for Jimmy Carter.

But when Mauldin used a grieving icon, it was something new (or at least not done often). That originality marked much of his work.

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