Goldberg is not Bill Kristol or Charles Krauthammer, at least in terms of function. He's not going to run around overtly beating his chest demanding that the U.S. attack Iran (or that the U.S. support Israel's attack): at least not yet. Although Goldberg did precisely that in the run-up to the attack on Iraq, his function now is more subtle, and more insidious. He's nothing if not shrewd, and certainly shrewd enough to know that if he spouts nakedly bellicose demands for a war with Iran, he'll be quickly dismissed as a neocon fanatic, especially in light of his discredited and falsehood-filled campaign to persuade Americans to attack Iraq. (...)
Thus, his pose is objective journalist. He'll feign "ambivalence" about whether Iran should be bombed -- thus showing how thoughtful and non-ideological he is -- while infecting the discourse with the kinds of factual falsehoods documented here, all in service of skewing the debate towards ensuring an attack happens. At its core, it's only a slightly modified version of what he did with Iraq (I'm merely "reporting" on Saddam's extensive relationship with Al Qaeda and his nuclear program/I'm merely "reporting" on the view of Israeli leaders that "a nuclear Iran poses the gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people").