Over on Twitter, Glenn Greenwald recommended this USA Today profile of Boston University historian Andrew Bacevich, who has been one of the most prolific and incisive critics of U.S. foreign policy in recent years.
Greenwald called it “surprisingly good,” which is right. But one thing about the piece really bothered me–how it dealt with the death of Bacevich’s son in Iraq. Reporter Rick Hampson tells that story via the classroom:
The students knew that Bacevich had always opposed the war in Iraq. They may have known that his only son, Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr., was an Army officer there. They did not know that the day before he had been killed there.
That awful irony–a son follows his father into the military and dies in a war the father fought to end–has helped make Bacevich one of the most prominent and credible critics of U.S. foreign policy.
I doubt that USA Today really means to say that the death of Bacevich’s son “helped” make Bacevich’s critique more “credible,” but that’s certainly what comes across here. As a politically conservative critic of Clinton, Bush and now Obama policies, one would hope that his record speaks for itself.
Bacevich doesn’t speak publicly much about his son’s death–I recall that from an interview he did with Bill Moyers in 2008. And Bacevich says much the same later on in the USA Today article:
Bacevich says his son’s loss does not affect his analysis and should not affect how it is received. “I’ve never said, ‘You need to listen to me because my son died in Iraq.'”
Again, this is one troubling aspect to an otherwise interesting piece about an important voice in our national debate. But that passage was a little off.
sorry, this does not rise to the level of media unfairness-esp. since the original author chose to include Basevich’s direct quote
this example does not belong on this site-and it should be taken down as an example of nit-picking.
it is also a fact that altho his son’s death may not inform Basevich’s position, it may inform the public’s perception of such positions.
I agree with Judy. While Basevich’s factual credibility may not have been changed by the tragedy, his gravitas and public perception are clearly enhanced. I’d listen more closely.
The article should stay.
The “helped” phrasing is anti-reason (can I say anti-intellectual?) without stating who, exactly, his son’s death helped to persuade. College kids? People who don’t read? Empathetics who can’t accept anything rational unless they are strongly moved?
If it informs the public’s opinion, state what sector of the public. Leaving that part out is sloppy writing. I was following Bacevich before his son’s death, and that sad event didn’t “help” me understand his work.
It’s a small thing, but the phrasing is a backhanded criticism of Bacevich, that his ideas alone don’t, or won’t, get the job done.
To say “helped to make credible” is to say the perceived validity, the public acceptance as being objective, of Bacevich’s judgment was somehow influenced by the death of his son.
I generously assume reporter Rick Hampson is referring only to his own estimation of Bacevich’s credibility, but he doesn’t say this. If he is making a statement about the perception of the public he should supply, or at least refer to, the results of the study, its data, and his justification of that interpretation.
The credibility of Rick Hampson, in my estimation, is diminished if he is attempting to divine the credibility of Bacevich with the public without actually attempting to measure that which he speaks of with such confidence.
David Brooks is another poor journalist who claims to speak for the public when, by means of his divinations, he routinely conflates his efforts to create public opinion with his efforts to reflect it.
The creation of public opinion is not the problem I have with these examples of poor journalism; the problem I have is the failure to make apparent the distinction between the attempts to create public opinion and the attempts to reflect it.