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# Posted 1:33 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

WHY IS THE NYT BEING SO NICE TO BUSH? It's hard to know whether the Security Council's 15-0 vote reflects a major accomplishment for the United States, or whether it simply reflects the UN's willing to sign off on the American occupation provided that they don't actually have to support it with soldiers or funds. Accordingly, the WaPo reports that

The Bush administration considers the Security Council vote a victory, particularly after failing to win U.N. support for the March 2003 invasion.

Yet the NYT reports Bush's alleged victory as if it were a fact rather than a boast, hence:

The 15-to-0 vote on the measure, co-sponsored by the United States and Britain, gave President Bush a major diplomatic win.

This sort of unwarranted praise reflects a pattern that I have noticed both while reading old NYT and WaPo articles for my dissertation as well as while blogging about the UN before the invasion of Iraq. In both cases, American presidents could almost guarantee themselves favorable coverage by working through multilateral organizations, UN-based or otherwise.

Moreover, the significance of achievements in any sort of multilateral context is often exagerrated by the press. While it may be too early to say this about the UN and Iraq, I find it quite surprising how any positive blip in US negotiations with Nicaragua in the 1980s got spun as a major opportunity to resolve tensions with the Sandinistas.

In addition, the Nicaraguans racked up a lot of positive headlines by making peace offers they knew the United States couldn't accept. To be fair, the WaPo did this just as much as the NYT despite the Post's more moderate editorial board. On the bright side, it seems the Post has learned a thing or two since then.

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