Looking through the major print coverage of General Petraeus’s appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning, something jumped out: In their write-ups of Petraeus’s testimony, along with that of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times fail to even touch on the crucial underlying fact of the war’s unpopularity.
And it is unpopular. A Gallup poll released today shows that 60 percent of Americans support setting a timetable for withdrawal regardless of what happens on the ground (essentially the Democratic position), while only 35 percent favor remaining in Iraq until the situation improves (the Bush/McCain position). But those findings clearly haven’t filtered into the coverage of today’s hearings.
Sure, these stories are intended to be immediate reports on the day’s events, not lengthy analyses of America’s ongoing Iraq commitment. But the whole point of hearing from Petraeus and Crocker is to help Congress–and the press and public–figure out the best way forward on Iraq. And once President Bush leaves office, public opinion is likely to be a major determinant of our future Iraq policy, so it’s certainly relevant to the issue at hand.
It’s not that the press should assume the public is necessarily right on the issue. But those arguing for an ongoing US military presence in Iraq are explicitly going against the grain of public sentiment. That’s important for all sorts of reasons, and it’s worth reporters taking a moment to make it clear.
