New book So Wrong for So Long, on Iraq and the media

8) When the New York Times carried its now-famous editors' note on May 26, 2004, admitting some errors in its WMD coverage, it appeared on page A10 and Judith Miller's name was nowhere to be found. The note is often described today as an "apology," but it was no such thing. On the day it ran, Executive Editor Bill Keller, not exactly chastened, called criticism of the Times' coverage "overwrought" and said that the main reason it even published the note was because the controversy had...

New book So Wrong for So Long, on Iraq and the media

8) When the New York Times carried its now-famous editors' note on May 26, 2004, admitting some errors in its WMD coverage, it appeared on page A10 and Judith Miller's name was nowhere to be found. The note is often described today as an "apology," but it was no such thing. On the day it ran, Executive Editor Bill Keller, not exactly chastened, called criticism of the Times' coverage "overwrought" and said that the main reason it even published the note was because the controversy had become a "distraction."

9) Likewise, it's often said that the Washington Post also issued an apology. But the criticism of its prewar coverage came not in an editors' statement but in an article by the paper's media critic, Howard Kurtz. Post editors offered several defenses for the coverage and top editor Len Downie argued that it didn't make much difference anyway, because tougher coverage would not have stopped the war.

11) In one of the purest "my bads" of the war, Fox News' John Gibson ripped Neil Young after the rocker released his protest album Living With War. Gibson demanded that Young go see the new United 93 movie and even offered to buy his ticket. Young, it was soon pointed out, had actually written one of the first 9/11 songs—"Let's Roll," about, you guessed it, Flight 93.

12) Surprise: David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, and Oliver North all came out against the "surge" last January after it was announced by President Bush. George Will wrote a column titled, "Surge, or Power Failure?" And, after the botched hanging of Saddam, Charles Krauthammer declared, [b][i]"We should not be surging American troops in de