A Stroll Down Memory Lane

Here's Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, the documentary that was shown on Rachel Maddow's program Monday night. If you didn't see it, it's about 45 minutes long and well worth watching. In fact, we should all watch a brief clip every morning before we pick up the newspaper.

The film traces the origin of most of the false reports leading up to the war. However, it only mentions in passing the body of information coming from United Nations weapons inspectors that rebutted the claim that Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction." When I predicted in 2002 that no WMDs would be found, I relied heavily on the testimony of Scott Ritter.

Not surprisingly, they don't take a clear stand on whether the Bush administration fell victim to confirmatory bias or this was a deliberate deception.

While they take a few swipes at the media, including the New York Times, they fail to mention MSNBC's own role in selling the war. On February 25, 2003, MSNBC cancelled its highest rated program, Donahue, due to host Phil Donahue's opposition to the upcoming invasion of Iraq.  A leaked memo stated that Donahue would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war."