I’ve gotten a lot of email like this:

Dear Jonah,

Have you seen the new Frontline episode: Dark Side, which covers Dick Cheney’s actions around the Iraq War?
This is one of the most biased “news” shows I’ve ever seen. The narrator says that American was swept up in a “war fever” in the lead-up to the Iraq War. It interviews Joe Wilson as an authoritative source without ever calling him on his bias, his lies, and his nonsensical claims. It builds up a case of deception by Cheney’s gang of Congress and disregard of an “honest” CIA through interviews with disgruntled ex-CIA employees. It asserts that WMDs were the only reason given to invade Iraq, and an insufficiently justified reason at that.
It’s just awful. Someone like you should watch it and parry it or fisk it.
Best,
Steve

Me: I only caught the last third or so of it. But this reader has the same impression, more or less, that I had. From what I saw, one official after another — particularly at the CIA — was playing CYA and pass-the-buck, Joe Wilson’s testimonials were taken as gospel, andt he title itself showed where Frontline was coming from. One point, which I know has been made a million times but still needs to be repeated, alas: “Discrediting” Joe Wilson is entirely honorable, sensible and normal. Somehow, the media and the left have made “discrediting” an evil thing only when discussing Wilson. But what does the left think it’s up to when they try to “discredit” Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld? What do they think things like Media Matters are there for? It’s to “discredit” opposing points of view they believe are inaccurate. Discredit does mean to attack someone’s reputation, but it also means to attack someone’s version of events. It’s only a “smear” if you try to discredit someone falsely. To date, the efforts to discredit Joe Wilson’s bad fath and dishonest and wildly partisan agenda has been anything but a smear.