The Washington Post acknowledges that it could have done better:
As violence continues in postwar Iraq and U.S. forces have yet to discover any WMDs, some critics say the media, including The Washington Post, failed the country by not reporting more skeptically on President Bush’s contentions during the run-up to war.
Follow the link; there’s a lot more. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, this pisses me off. I can’t even begin to tell you how many morons wrote me before the war and said, how can you possibly oppose this war? We KNOW Saddam has WMD’s! Let alone all the gloating triumphalism on Pulling-Down-the-Statue Day. They say the US is polarized like never before — well, I swear, sometimes it seems to me that the only real polarization is between smart people and stupid people. And by “stupid,” I don’t mean unintelligent — there are plenty of stupid people with advanced degrees and high paying jobs in this world. No, by “stupid,” I mean people who are apparently incapable of comprehending one of the basic truisms of human history: politicians do not always tell the truth. The smart people understood from the start that this war was predicated upon a pile of bullshit so deep, you’d need one of those special pressurized deep sea diving bells to find your way to the bottom. And as for the Post, and others who have subsequently figured out the difference between their own anus and a hole in the ground — well, don’t expect any accolades from me. I’d suggest they try to do better next time but I know they won’t. If, god forbid, Bush manages to secure a second term, and whips up another jingoistic pro-war frenzy to invade Iran or Syria or France or Canada, you can just damn well bet all these self-flagellating media types will be right there at the forefront, waving their little flags and dutilfully fulfilling their function as stenographers to power, desperately afraid of being labeled “unpatriotic” by a handful of fringe lunatics who not only don’t deserve the attention they get, but in a sane world, would not deserve to be pissed upon if they were on fire.
Oh, by the way, here’s the kicker:
“Do I feel we owe our readers an apology? I don’t think so.”