The Villager's Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

By Steve Hynd

Robert Naiman has a good catch over at Daily Kos today. He notes that, back in November last year, David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote that he worried whether Obama had the strength of character to negotiate with the Taliban the way John McCain would and, should Obama falter, the only alternative would be more troops for "what may be an unwinnable war". One year on, and Ignatius has forgotten about negotiating, he's all about sending more troops.

Robert writes:

Contradiction? Not at all, if you consider that when Ignatius was describing his fear that Obama wouldn't be able to "get away with" pursuing negotiations, Ignatius had intimate knowledge of what would be a key obstacle to Obama doing so: the published opinions of establishment pundits like David Ignatius.

Fox "News" creates an opinion and then reports on it. David Ignatius reports on his own opinion before he even tells you what it will be.

And adds that, although they are more subtle than the likes of Glenn Beck, Village print journalists are more pernicious because of the influence they wield. He calls them "FOX in print clothing".

It's a very astute observation and one that's confirmed by an examination of the D.C. "very serious people" set's writing about Iran. There again, Ignatius has been one of the leaders as the Villagers pronounced that any negotiations with Iran would get exactly one chance, would fail, and then it would be on to further sanctions followed, no doubt and in due course, by falling bombs. 

Agent Ignatius of the I.S.I. wasn't the only one. The chorus has been consistent since Bush's last days and has included just about every pundit at the WaPo and NY Times as well as SecState Clinton herself. She has consistently ignored the 2007 NIE that DNI Blair still stands by and has even said herself that she expects negotiations to fail. It's little wonder that the Iranians, both moderates and hardliners, dubbed her "Madame AIPAC" and concluded that any overture that had a Clintonite in it must be a con job.

This constant Villager pressure has formed part of the context in which the current round of negotiations has played out, to disappointing results. The Foxes in print clothing have engineered themselves yet another self-fulfilling prophecy and can now pat each other on the back about how prescient they all are - and pen new op-eds about how Obama has given the Iranians their chance and shouldn't go back to the negotiating table.