NY Times OP-ED ''A War We Just Might Win,'' by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack

What is going on with the New York Times? Enough is enough!

Don't you think the clowns at the NY Times have done enough to perpetuate the lies and deceit of this administration on Iraq without printing such an intellectually dishonest July 30 Op-Ed piece by these two disingenuous self promoters?

In case you hadn't heard, apparently these two clowns got the supervised US military tour where they spoke to hand picked military personnel and civilians undoubtedly echoing the administration line. As noted by Glen Greenwald at Salon and others at the Huffington Post, Pollack and O'Hanlon suggested things are going well in several provinces after visiting for a couple of hours each and while spending every night safely ensconced in the Green Zone. That kind of research would not fly in journalism school (at least the school I went to) but apparently it is sufficient for the NYT editors. Did it not occur to any of the folks at the Times (Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal for example) to question their credibility here?

But even more problematic: these two pretended to be critics of the war even though both supported it initially. Pollack was on air repeatedly defending the invasion (at least Tom Friedman had the good sense to shut up). And both supported the surge.

How did the folks at the Times miss these simple facts? Anyone who doesn't have his head in the sand knows this but they still printed this tripe.

Once again the NYT allowed itself to be a mouthpiece for a morally dishonest administration and its minions. They blew it with Judith Miller. They blew it by not publishing the Bush story on domestic spying. My guess is the election outcome would have been significantly different is the Times had brought this story to print before the election (when it was in fact fully vetted). Now this.

In my view the NYT and Editor Bill Keller are in part responsible for the moral and ethic vacuum in Washington. They, like many other journalists, simply did not do their job.

Perhaps Murdoch should buy the Old Gray Lady and put us all out of our misery. At least then we will understand the bizarre politics of the editorial page and the editors.