THE APRIL 7, 2003 ISSUE of the New Yorker contains an article by Seymour Hersh that will be taught in journalism classes for decades to come: “Offense and Defense: The Battle between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.” Hersh’s opening sentences read: “As the ground campaign against Saddam Hussein faltered last week, with attenuated supply lines and a lack of immediate reinforcements, there was anger in the Pentagon. Several senior war planners complained to me in interviews that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his inner circle of civilian advisors, who had been chiefly responsible for persuading President Bush to lead the country into war, had insisted on micromanaging the war’s operational details.” On April 9, U.S. troops controlled much of Baghdad and Iraqis were celebrating in the city’s streets and public squares. Victory in Baghdad does not mean the end of the war, of course, but perhaps it could mean the beginning of accountability in punditry.

Hersch was far from alone, and let’s not even count the silly caucus of Dixie Chicks, Garafalos, Pearl Jams, and Michael Moore. The March 30 editions of the New York Times and Washington Post carry stories by R.W. Apple and Vernon Loeb respectively, which, had a reader been obliged to depend only upon these accounts for news of the war, would have caused him to believe that stalemate was all but certain. Add in the commentaries of Generals Wesley Clark, Barry McCaffrey, and Merrill McPeak, and the picture of Napoleon’s retreat from Russia enters the mind.