Mona Charen has a great syndicated article today: Media don’t share Marines’ view of Iraq
Here’s a few of the high points:
One does not sense that members of the military share the belief so widespread in the press and Congress that the Iraq war is going very badly.
Certainly an understatement for those of us who bother to learn what’s going on for real.
I do know that since Vietnam, liberals have viewed every exercise of American military power (with the exception of those undertaken by Bill Clinton) as preludes to disaster. The very first question Ronald Reagan was asked at his first presidential press conference concerned El Salvador. The question: Did he think it was going to turn into another Vietnam? Democrats invoked Vietnam with every other sentence during the controversy about aiding the resistance in Nicaragua. More recently, just days into the Afghanistan war, The New York Times ran a front-page lament calling that conflict a new “quagmire.”
Liberals seem always to believe that America will lose its wars, and when it doesn’t, that it should.
Did ya notice the “Democratic exemption” afforded to Clinton? And that even success is a “quagmire” when Republicans are involved. And everything is Vietnam?
And, finally, Damsel related this incident she saw in another post to me over our chatroom session. Ms. Charon included it in her article. Let it just sink in . . .
A small group of Iraqis were turned away from [a] food distribution point, though they had been waiting in line for hours. They were given vouchers and told they could come to the front of the line the next morning when supplies would be replenished. These few unhappy souls were then besieged by press types eager to tell their story.
At the same site, the Marines had repaired an old Ferris wheel. The motor was dead, but when two Marines pushed and pulled by hand they could get the thing turning to give rides to the children of the Iraqi employees. A U.S. photographer watched impassively. “Why don’t you take a picture of this?” demanded one Marine. The photographer snorted, “That’s not my job.”
Asshole photographer. Asshole media.. Think about this before you buy the Times or tune in the “alphabet outlets” – ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS (need I go on?)
Update: Wizbang has a nice article about Joseph Lieberman’s (D – sometimes, DINO – otherwise) article encouraging President Bush to tout our successes in Iraq.