In the fall of 2002, during the run up to the war in Iraq, Oprah Winfrey devoted a portion of one of her shows to answering a pressing international question. Do the Iraqi people want America to liberate them from Saddam Hussein?

Ms. Winfrey posed the question to Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesperson for the Iraqi National Congress—an erstwhile group of Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi that, at the time, was busy lobbying the American government to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “Absolutely,” responded Mr. Qanbar.

Later, Ms. Winfrey called on an audience member. “I hope this doesn’t offend you,” said the young woman. “I just don’t know what to believe with the media and…” Ms. Winfrey cut her off. “We’re not trying to show you propaganda,” Ms. Winfrey explained. “We’re just showing you what is.”

Four-and-a-half years later, with American troops embroiled in a seemingly intractable civil war in Iraq, and the reputation of Iraqi National Congress in tatters, the question of what exactly Ms. Winfrey and the rest of her colleagues in the media were showing to millions of American viewers on the eve of invasion begs a second look.

Tonight at 9:00 p.m., PBS will be airing a special episode of Bill Moyers Journal, entitled, “Buying the War,” which takes a long, hard look at the American media’s performance in the months leading up to the start of the war. The result is a detailed portrait of media groupthink gone horribly awry.

Throughout the 90 minute program, a large number of print and broadcast journalists--from Oprah, to Judith Miller, to George Will, to the Sunday morning talk show pundits, to Roger Ailes’ legions at Fox, to William Kristol, to the reporters on the evening network news, to Vanity Fair’s David Rose—are shown passing along hyperbolic stories about Iraq’s biological and nuclear weapons capacity.

As it turns out, many of those overblown stories relied almost exclusively on the false claims of hawkish administration officials and dodgy Iraqi defectors. Claims that often went unchecked by some of the best minds in the business.

There were exceptions, and throughout “Buying the War,” Mr. Moyers gives plenty of airtime to the reporters who got the story right, particularly to John Walcott, Jonathan Landay, and Warren Strobel of the erstwhile Knight Ridder news service.

The show also features captivating interviews with 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, and an apologetic Dan Rather.

“Especially right after 9/11, especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on, there was a real sense that you don’t get that critical of a government that’s leading us in war time,” Walter Isaacson, the former chairman and CEO of CNN tells Mr. Moyers. “Big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Reached by phone on Monday, Kathleen Hughes, the producer of “Buying the War,” said that the documentary has been a year in the making. “Bill has called this a historical documentary except the history is only four years ago,” said Ms. Hughes.

“By and large most of us in the media accepted the administration’s point of view,” said Ms. Hughes. “I think that had to do with what some of our reporters say in the show--that there seemed to be an almost bipartisan belief that Saddam Hussein was keeping a big arsenal and that we had to be worried about him. But when you look at the Knight Ridder reporting you begin to understand that there was plenty of detailed, accurate information available in real time. That was the biggest surprise.”

Did the largely unflattering portrayal of the press leave Ms. Hughes feeling depressed about her profession?

“No,” said Ms. Hughes. “I still have a tremendous amount of respect for journalists. We all have our good work and our not so good work. I still think it’s a noble profession. Just look at the Knight Ridder guys. In this case, they’re my heroes.”

Here are Bill Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan (in The War Over Iraq, 2003):

"That things might be worse without [Saddam] is of course a possibility. But... it is difficult to imagine how... Nevertheless, Powell and others have argued that if the United States alienates central Iraq's Sunnis, say by overthrowing Saddam, Iraq could be plunged into chaos... But predictions of ethnic turmoil in Iraq are even more questionable than they were in the case of Afghanistan... Saddam has little support among any ethnic group, Sunnis included, and the Iraqi opposition [!] is itself a multiethnic force... Iraq was a multiethnic, multisectarian state before Saddam came to power... [T]he executive director of the Iraq Foundation, Rend Rahim Francke, says, 'we will not have a civil war in Iraq. This is contrary to Iraqi history, and Iraq has not had a history of communal conflict as there has been in the Balkans or in Afghanistan... Iraq will not fall apart and will not be dismembered...'"

The Shi'ite clergy could represent the small percentage of Shi'ites who favor an Islamic form of government, but they probably constitute less than 15 percent of the Shi'ite population... [T]ribal Iraqis living in tribal circumstances (Sunni or Shi'ah) now comprise a fraction of the population, probably less than 15 percent. On the other hand, 70 percent of the population is urban, and evne those city dwellers who retain some links to their tribes probably would not want to be represented by shaykhs who know nothing about life in Iraq's cities....[T]he mostly secular urban lower and middle classes... constitute the bulk of Iraq's population..."

Then there's David Wurmser, Cheney's brainy adviser, arguing (in Tyranny's Ally, 1999, published by the visionary American Enterprise Institute with support by Irving Moskowitz, who backs expansion of settlements in the West Bank) that liberating the Shi'ites would bring a modern, liberalizing spirit to the whole region, notably Iran:

"With totalitarian [Sunni] Ba'athism's subjugation of the Iraqi Shi'ite centers... not just Iraq but the entire Arab and Islamic worlds have lost one of their most important models of civil society. These independent [Shi'ite] institutions could have served much as Protestantism did in the Anglo-Saxon world, as a levee against the inundating absolutism of the state and as a foundation of liberalism and civil society...With no clerical freedom in Iraq... no Shi'ite entity has the freedom to challenge the narrow, controversial, and revolutionary form of Shi'ite politics practiced by Ayatollah Khomeini [in Iran]... Liberating the Shi'ite centers in Najaf and Karbala... could allow Iraqi Shi'ites to challenge and perhaps fatally derail the Iranian revolution. Comparably, in the Soviet Union, communism was undermined when the people's courts, the Politburo, and the cult of personality were abolished; without these weapons, power can again be diffused, civil society reestablished..."

"we are betting" Mexican-Americans will "think Mexico first"

It means dual citizens are, in effect, privileged "supra-citizens" because unlike other Americans they have voting power in more than one state and are loyal to more than one constitution. sanctions would serve two purposes: (1) to discourage the practice, and (2) to remind everyone (Americans and the rest of the world alike) we are serious about the Oath of Allegiance and about our traditional ideal of political rather than racial or ethnic citizenship.

His feelings were displaced.

News of Saddam Hussein's death sentence could help some Republicans at the polls tomorrow.

Obama was in Nashville yesterday campaigning for Harold Ford, Jr.

John Sweeney's lead over Kirsten Gillibrand disappeared after allegations of domestic abuse surfaced recently.

Republicans here expect to hold onto the state Senate.

Spitzer said, "There was no cover-up," involving the late disclosure of his campaign manager's arrest for drunk driving late last month.

Democrats rally around Vito Fossella's challenger, for a change.

And the Times tips its hat to the winners of "Best Waste of a Good Debate Performance," "Best Campaign Event Heckling," and other notable stand-outs from this campaign season.