3. Matt Taibbi, Cleaning the Pool, New York Press, March 2003 — I noted the beauty of this particular media critique in a recent piece on war crimes tribunals and the Washington Post. Taibbi is a gifted writer and this column dealt a much-needed blow to the sycophantic Washington press corps.
4. Diana Johnstone, French Common Sense And The Furia Friedmania, Swans, Oct. 20, 2003 — Johnstone lets us in on a little secret — at least to those of us on this side of the Atlantic — about how the French media offered only mild support to Jacques Chirac’s Iraq policy. “The real debate in Paris is whether to ride a new wave of aggressive imperialism on Uncle Sam’s coattails, or to seek to build genuine international understanding and legality,” Johnstone writes. “For at least a moment, Chirac and de Villepin chose the second option. In today’s world, such good sense is rare and may be fleeting."
5. Derrick Z. Jackson, U.S. Stays Blind to Iraqi Casualties, Boston Globe, Nov. 14, 2003 — Jackson is one of the few mainstream newspaper columnists worth reading. In this piece, he takes the Bush administration to task for its callous disregard for the number of Iraqi deaths and casualties the invasion and occupation have caused. “The White House always said it would never count how many Iraqi parents we killed to liberate their children,” Jackson writes. “This is the most disgusting and least discussed aspect of President Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq."
6. Ted Rall, No Future, Dec. 30, 2003 — Rall, the cartoonist, is also a skilled polemicist. In this 2004 forecast piece, Rall writes: “Should the Republicans and Bush prevail, the radical reforms enacted under his first term--a shift of power away from Congress toward an increasingly imperious presidency, the transition from European-influenced secular democracy to Third World-style theocratic police state, perpetual war--will take on an air of institutional permanence."
7. Daniel Patrick Welch, Love, American Style, Press Action, Nov. 18, 2003 — Daniel Patrick Welch produced some excellent commentary in 2003 on the U.S. government’s sorry state of affairs. This column was particularly notable for its assessment of the depths to which American democracy has fallen. Welch writes: “Every time we indulge a human impulse to give these thugs the benefit of any doubt in any arena, we are reminded that there is no redeeming aspect whatever to this administration.” This piece was so good that it’s been translated into several languages, including Croatian, Finnish and Portuguese.
8. Glen T. Martin, Without Protest, Americans Are Giving Up Freedom, Roanoke Times, Jan. 2, 2003 — The Radford University professor tells it like it is in this critique of post-9/11 U.S. government actions. “But today, it has gotten worse with the passage of the Homeland Security Act,” Martin writes. “Notice that these titles, ‘Patriot’ and ‘Homeland,’ sound very much like the language of the Nazis.” It was on the basis of this piece of commentary that Martin received the inaugural Press Action Hero of the Week award.
9. Paul Craig Roberts, Wave the Flag to Deceive, Oct. 4, 2003 — I may disagree with many of Roberts’ views on social issues but his analysis of the U.S. invasion of Iraq has been on target. In this piece, Roberts writes: “The American invasion of Iraq is the most gratuitous war in human history. Not since Woodrow Wilson manipulated American patriotism to enter World War I and FDR manipulated American patriotism to enter World War II have Americans been so deceived."
10. Justin Raimondo, Year of the Liars, Antiwar.com, Dec. 31, 2003 — Every installment of Raimondo’s “Behind the Headlines” column is a must read so I thought I’d nominate his excellent final column of 2003 — on Iraq war lies and l’affaire Plame — to represent his body of work for the year.
Given the radically activist path taken by the U.S. government during the past 12 months, political and social commentators enjoyed a bumper crop of topics on which to opine in 2003. Below, I’ve chosen what I consider the best pieces of commentary of the year.