Unfortunatly you have people repeating over and over and perception is reality when it is not. Reality is reality.

Hillary sucks!

Somehow I just do not buy this argument. All the journalists in the United States got together and decided to lie about Iraq or only report the "bad" things. This does not pass the common sense test.

I would also say that there is a strong media reporting the good things in Iraq. Talk radio is dominated by this and FOX news is fast becoming the most watched news program (if you believe them). Further, even if the news media is completely biased (Of course, it is possible what they are reporting is true) it apparently had little effect on the populace given how the last election went. So, either it is not biased or most of the Country is discounting it so it does not matter anyway.

I would say that the military and the Bush administration have a part to play in this. They are so secretive and refuse to engage the press in meaningful dialogue (i.e., when Bush was asked if he made any mistakes the only one he could come up with is that he made some bad appointments - apparently a reference to Powell). Therefore, the press is left to investigate on their own and come to their own conclusions.

Finally, the biggest issue is that Bush led the Country into a set of expectations that at every pass have been wrong. Therefore, the press is naturally skeptical... thank God. The WMDs were not there, Rumsfeld said the war would take 8 months, Wolfowitz said they would need "100,000 troops tops", Rumsfeld said we would be "welcome as liberators", all of which has turned out to be wrong.

So, it appears the "skeptics" of this war have been right a lot more than the administration. I side with the proven winners... the skeptics.

If you want to find the last bastion of prejudice, stereotyping, and close-mindedness in the USA, take a look at the news media. It isn't just the military that's been subjected to their bias, but also ethnic minorities, women, the mentally ill, people over 40, and middle-class & rich Republicans (not rich Democrats, as long as they contribute generously to the party).

Considering the amount of dishonest quoting I've seen by the "skeptical" media, I'd like to see links to transcripts of the entire interview where Rumsfeld said the war would last 8 months, including the questions being posed (since your Command TOC link didn't have that) and that we'd be greeted as liberators. (Oh, and you might want to make up your mind as to who said that: Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld.)

For one thing, the invasion lasted barely two months and the cleanup/rebuilding process has been happening since. I guess it's easier to redefine that as the entire war so you can gleefully claim Rumsfeld was wrong or lying or whatever.

For another: I distinctly recall our troops being welcomed by some of the Iraqis as liberators. Oops, guess someone's trying to redefine that claim as ALL Iraqis so they can again jump up and down in glee and proclaim defeat. Because you support the troops! (As poor downtrodden victims of the evil Shrub's machinations... but you support them!)

Quick, throw out more labels like "conservative" and "right-wing" or "neocon" and so on. It might scare people to your side. Oh, yeah. Skeptics always win: when they're wrong, they get all quiet and get incredibly loud when they can claim they're right.

It would be nice to put together a list of sites that have "decent" reporting of what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For instance, I absolutely LOVE the writing of Michael Yon at www.michaelyon.blogspot.com

Got any other favorite sites that you know of that is blogging on Ira1 and Afghanistan?

Fumento writes that he nearly lost his life in an ambush and came back from Iraq with a colostomy bag, and noted that civilians could only travel from the airport into Baghdad "in a vehicle that's so heavily armored it would take a nuclear improvised explosive to stop it" -- this in a column about how the press is ignoring the good news. The disconnect makes my head spin.

Oh yeah, the situation in Iraq is so "good" that every time any politician makes a visit it is always a "surprise visit" arriving before dawn and almost always staying within the Green Zone and have to take a helicopter from the Green Zone to the airport because the airport road is closed due to the military being unable to control it! It's so "good" in Baghdad raw sewage is flowing in the streets (and I don't mean the American "soldiers"). It's so "stable" average Iraqis are afraid to go out at night. They are doing so "well" the puppet government has had to institute gas rationing. Think about that for a moment: the world's second-largest oil producer and it has miles-long lines of cars every day waiting to get gas??!! When Iraq's consumption is but a very tiny fraction of it's production and they can't even get that amount easily? The situation in Iraq is so "good" that they have yet to show in any news medium a map showing which areas are solidly under Rebel control, which are heavily contested and which are under U.S. "control". They DO however admit occasionally that certain towns like Ramadi and Haditha they know are brimming with Rebels and yet the occupier has too little strength to be able to assult those two towns. Notice how they make almost daily pinprick "operations" that accomplish little or nothing save bucking up the morale of the average walnut-size-brained American at home. Operation "Dagger", Operation "Lightning", Operation "Thunder", Operation "Ivy Cyclone", ad nauseum. What has any of this accomplished in military terms? Nothing. Every day the Rebel forces get stronger. Notice THEY aren't suffering from a recruitment problem. Every day the tired, worn-out, gunshy occupying forces get weaker. For every Rebel they kill, five more are inspired to join to avenge him; for every American that the Rebels kill, probably an equal number of Americans decide to not join the military. Every door the occupier kicks down he alienates more Iraqis and is that much further from winning. As it is, the average Iraqi realizes he has a puppet "government" that does not speak for him and also loathes the occupier, wanting them to leave AND knows Iraq is being raped of its resources daily by said occupier. The reason why it "appears that no end is in sight" is because there ISN'T any end in sight except the occupier withdrawing with his tail between his legs like in Vietnam or Beirut or Somalia... The truth is the situation in Iraq (from the standpoint of the occupier) is rapidly deteriorating. Funny how most Americans were in favor of this war when it was being sold to them as cheap and easy and bloodless (for the U.S.) but once it becomes a REAL fight the big bad bully America starts to whimper and whine about the other side fighting back, suddenly not wanting any part of a TWO-sided bloodletting.