NetRoots: Online Progressives and the Transformation of American Politics by Matthew Robert Kerbel

Author:Matthew Robert Kerbel [Kerbel, Matthew Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781317255574
Google: BB0eCwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28132604
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Framing Policy

If there is a single, overarching policy issue that netroots bloggers feel passionately about, it is the Iraq War. For years they have struggled against a mainstream news narrative that they feel misrepresented the risks posed by invading Iraq, overplayed the dangers of Saddam Hussein’s regime, supported an inventory of ever-changing Bush administration justifications for the war, provided misleading accounts of how the war was progressing, ignored official mistreatment of the troops by the administration and the Republican Congress, downplayed combat deaths and injuries, and falsely asserted that to oppose the war is to oppose America. Theirs is a lengthy and detailed litany of complaints against the traditional press, which they hold accountable for selling an unnecessary war to a susceptible public, then propping up the administration to cover for its own complicity. In challenging conventional coverage, netroots bloggers strive to replace mainstream narratives about the war with the narrative heard frequently on progressive blogs—that the war is a failed policy. To this end, one of the story lines they attacked mercilessly was the give-it-time-to-work frame, which suggested it was premature to assert that the situation in Iraq would not or could not improve. What made this frame particularly frustrating to netroots bloggers was how amorphous measures of success made it virtually impossible to challenge calls for patience.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman became a favorite blogger target, and his repeated calls for patience made his name synonymous with goalpost-moving. In May 2006, the website Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (fair.org) posted a list of fourteen of Friedman’s public predictions about the future course of the war dating back to 2003. Read together, they become a comical loop of pleas for patience, reiterating for almost three years that Iraq policy would sort itself out in six months:

“The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time.” (New York Times, 11/30/03)

“What we’re gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war.” (CBS’s Face the Nation, 10/3/04)

“I think we’re in the end game now…. I think we’re in a six-month window here where it’s going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that’s my own feeling—let alone the presidential one.” (NBC’s Meet the Press, 9/25/05)

“The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful.” (New York Times, 12/21/05)

“I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.” (NBC’s Today, 3/2/06)

“Well, I think that we’re going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months— probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we’re going to have to just let this play out.

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