DEBATE: Was Media Coverage of Iraq War's End Fair?
Headlines began crossing the wires here at home on Saturday night that the final American convoy had crossed the Iraq border into Kuwait, marking the last set of U.S. troops to leave the country in the announced end-of-year withdrawal. Still, the focus of the majority of media coverage when discussing the nearly nine-year war was fixed primarily on the "divisiveness" of the conflict.
On Monday's Happening Now, Jon Scott spoke with Alan Colmes and Rich Lowry for their perspectives on the media's handling of the end of the war.
"We left with a whimper, not with a bang ... there was
no shock-and-awe at the end," said Colmes. "This was a gradual diminution of the war."
According to Colmes, the final weeks of the conflict followed President Bush's timeline, saying that the U.S. "couldn't stay longer even if President Obama wanted us to, because we couldn't get immunity to protect our own forces from legal action."
Lowry said there's no argument that the war was divisive, but there is a real debate about the war that won't likely cease for years to come.
"We're going to have an argument for decades over this war -- whether it was misconceived at the beginning, or whether it was thrown away at the end ... and I tend to agree with the latter."
Watch the full debate:
