“I want to share with you how two Iraqi bloggers — they have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we’ve got here,” Mr. Bush told an audience of ranchers and cattlemen, after remarking that Iraqis were beginning to see “positive changes.”
He went on to quote the bloggers directly: “Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed. We hope the governments in Baghdad and America do not lose their resolve.”
But just who were these anonymous bloggers? The deputy White House press secretary, Dana Perino, spent a good chunk of her regular briefing on Wednesday deflecting that question, and defending the propriety of the president’s use of anonymous quotes.
Ms. Perino called the bloggers “one input from many different inputs that are coming in regarding progress on the ground,” and said she herself had often responded to anonymous quotations. “Blogs are new for all of us,” she said, “and I know that you all look at them, because you call me and ask me what we think about the blogs.”
As for the writers’ identity, it remained a mystery — until the White House distributed a transcript of the briefing. In a footnote at the end, the administration disclosed that the bloggers were Omar and Mohammed Fadhil, two brothers who are both dentists and who write an English-language blog, IraqTheModel.com, from Baghdad. The White House said their writings had been cited in mainstream news outlets; on March 5, the Fadhil brothers wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled “Notes from Baghdad.”
Oh, yes, and on Dec. 9, 2004, they met in the Oval Office with Mr. Bush.
Now that the subject is old and tired, the Times has stumbled on the “news” that the blogosphere is more aptly termed the propaganda-sphere.
Boxer takes on the case of Iraq the Model, a website that captures in its very name the neocon vision of a democratized and properly domesticated Middle East. The pro-war bloggers have been touting the brothers Fadhil, as exemplars of the “good news” from Iraq. Their capstone of their triumphant American tour, sponsored by a “charitable” organization known as the “Spirit of America,” occurred when two of the brothers were received at the White House for face time with the Prezt. But there’s a fly in this ointment, as I pointed out at the time, and I?m glad to see that the MSM, in the person of Ms. Boxer, has fished it out: the disenchantment of the third brother, Ali, whose last post on Iraq the Model read as follows:
“This is the last time I write in this blog and I just want to say, goodbye. It’s not an easy thing to do for me, but I know I should do it. I haven’t told my brothers with my decision, as they are not here yet, but it won’t change anything and I just can’t keep doing this anymore.
“My stand regarding America has never changed. I still love America and feel grateful to all those who helped us get our freedom and are still helping us establishing democracy in our country. But it’s the act of some Americans that made me feel I’m on the wrong side here. I will expose these people in public very soon and I won’t lack the mean to do this, but I won’t do it here as this is not my blog.
“At any rate, it’s been a great experience and a pleasure to know all the regular readers of this blog, as I do feel I know you, and I owe you a lot.
“Best wishes to all of you, those who supported us and those who criticized us as well.”
Boxer got in touch with Ali, and her depiction of his ambiguity about the American occupation, and the tenuousness of his position in relation to the realities of Iraq, ruined the Potemkin Village rah-rah propaganda regularly emitted ? in English ? on ?Iraq the Model? and a slew of other pro-occupation Iraqi blogs:
?Why did he quit Iraq the Model? When was he going to expose the Americans who made him feel he was on the wrong side? He was surprisingly frank. The blog had changed him. When the blog began, he said, ?People surprised me with their warmth and how much they cared about us.? But as time passed, he said, ?I felt that this is not just goodwill, giving so much credit to Iraq the Model. We haven’t accomplished anything, really.?
“His views took a sharp turn when his two brothers met with the president. There wasn’t supposed to be any press coverage about their trip to the United States, he said. But the Washington Post wrote about the meeting, and the Arabic press ended up translating the story, which, Ali felt, put his family in real danger. Anyway, he said, he didn’t see any sense in his brothers’ meeting with President Bush. ?My brothers say it happened accidentally, that it was not planned.? But why, he asked, take such an ?unnecessary risk?? He explained his worries: ?Here some people would kill you for just writing to an American.??
Ali, in short, was tired of being used by the War Party to make propaganda in America. The pro-war bloggers are now getting up on their high horses, screeching that Boxer has put the Fadhil brothers in danger. But Ali is right: it is the propagandists in America, including the laptop bombardiers? brigade, who put them in danger the minute they started holding them up as model New Iraqis, the offspring of the “liberation.” But since Glenn Reynolds-Powerline-Little Green Footballs crowd is definitely not part of the reality-based community, the hard reality of Ali?s comment that ?Here some people would kill you for just writing to an American? is inadmissible, becasue “some people” means an awful lot of people.
Boxer takes up the suspicions first raised by Martini Republic that ?Iraq the Model? might have informal connections to the U.S. government, a suggestion that was greeted with outrage by pro-war bloggers, but Ali?s account doesn?t dispel the murky aura of intrigue that hangs over the whole affair:
“Ali never did expose the people who made him feel that he was on the wrong side, and in fact conceded that he couldn’t. As he confided on the phone, ‘I didn’t know who the people were.’”
Hmmmmmmmm?.
But Ali isn’t disenchanted with the idea of human freedom: it’s just that now he doesn?t identify this idea with the U.S. government:
“‘Me and my brothers,’ he said, “we generally agree on Iraq and the future.’ (He is helping his brother Mohammed, who is running on the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party ticket in the Jan. 30 election.) But there is one important difference: ‘My brothers have confidence in the American administration. I have my questions.’”
So it's not that simple, Mr. Bush. Much of what you read in blogs is pure political propaganda (think Pajamas Media, LGF, Wizbang (sadly, because there are some good guys over there, but they're becoming subsumed by the Kim Priestaps of the world), Redstate, and on and on). But there are also some independent-minded writers, too, like Rick Moran, Mark in Mexico, Alex Nunez (who I wish had more time to blog) and others, and even some bloggers, even of the Iraq the Model variety, for whom the Kool-Aid eventually wears off.
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
