Nonscandal of the year

A lot of folks are trying to act shocked over the revelation that the U.S. has been bribing Iraqi newspapers to run pro-American stories. Here, for instance, the Washington Monthly blog approvingly quotes somebody or other getting all huffy over it:

"The payola scheme has immensely corrosive longer-term implications for media institutions, for American credibility, for building the institutions of pluralism and democracy. Most immediately it has devastating implications for the credibility of pro-American voices in the region ... Every pro-American voice in Iraq and in the region now comes under greater suspicion of having been on the take."

Oh, c'mon, this is Iraq we're talking about. I can't imagine a single Iraqi ever believed that local newspapers gave him the unbiased, disinterested truth.

I would suspect that the way Iraqis think is that if they see a lot of pro-American stories in the newspaper, that means America has lots of money to pay bribes, so maybe they ought to suck up to the Americans too so they can pocket their fair share of American bribes. But if there aren't many pro-American stories, that means the Americans must be running out of bribe money, so, who needs them?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer