And why everyone else in the media should too. via Digby at Hullabaloo

Moving to those rationales, twenty-seven rationales for the war were used at one time or another, and, of the sixteen rationales that emerged before the final phase of research, thirteen appeared in later phases. Thus, the campaign for the war on Iraq was broad and there seemed to be a great deal of continuity between the phases.

Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress, and the Media from September 12, 2001 to October 11, 2002[{PDF]
Thesis for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
By: Devon M. Largio

…The change of focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein came at different times for each source examined here. President Bush began to mention more about Saddam Hussein in April of 2002. The media switched to focusing on Saddam Hussein in July of 2002. And, finally, Congress mentioned Saddam Hussein more in April then switched back to Osama bin Laden and eventually settled into a pattern of discussion on Saddam Hussein in September of 2002. Yet, as much of the research that follows looks at the response to the search term �Iraq,� a comparison was made between the usage of Saddam Hussein and the usage of Iraq by the various people and sources studied here. The results show that, though Iraq appears more frequently, the trends remain the same for President Bush and the media. Yet, these higher numbers do alter the changeover from Osama bin Laden to Iraq. For example, Congress moves to examining the topic of Iraq in greater number by January of 2002, an earlier and more stable change than the change to a focus on Saddam Hussein. Additionally, the change to Iraq from Osama occurs in January of 2002 for the President and in February of 2002 for the media.

The Bush administration, and the President himself, established the majority of the rationales for the war and all of those rationales that make up the most prominent reasons for war. Initially, the media introduced Iraq to officials and they responded accordingly; by Phase Two, the officials were introducing Iraq, and by Phase Three almost all of their public statements were about Iraq. This changing focus of the administration lines up with the statistics cited earlier in the paper that showed February 2002 as the month in which President Bush began addressing Saddam Hussein and Iraq more than Osama bin Laden, at least numerically, with a solid change made by April of 2002. Additionally, much of what the administration said was covered in the news and quickly appeared in the words of members of Congress and in the Congressional Record. Again, the statistics can be brought to bear on the rationales. The statistics show Congress changing its focus in early 2002, focusing on Iraq by January of 2002, and pretty solidly set on Saddam Hussein and Iraq by the summer. In the rationale analysis,
Congressmen and the Congressional Record brought up the war more often and talked more openly about the prospect of war, without prodding from the media, in Phases Two and Three. Looking at the media, in Phase One much of the discussion around Iraq was initiated by questions from reporters, with the exception of Senator John McCain who brought up the topic of Iraq on multiple occasions. Yet, by Phase Two, most of the officials were talking about Iraq without much prodding and certainly by Phase Three there was no need to ask questions and introduce the topic first. Overall, the media highlighted all of the identified main and secondary rationales, meaning that it did follow the lead of the administration.