Taking it to the Media RE Iraq

Over at Editor and Publisher Greg Mitchell takes it to the media over their coverage of Bush's debacle in the sand. Go read the entire commentary but I'll give you the last few paragraphs.

The Cindy Sheehan protest in Texas, whatever one thinks of it (and her), has energized the antiwar movement, and emboldened a few mainstream politicians, besides Hagel, to call for withdrawal. Sen. Russell Feingold became the first Democratic senator to call for a pullout by the end of next year, and hearings on this proposal will take place soon.

On Sunday, Feingold revealed that when he visited Iraq he asked a top general what he thought about setting a timetable for exiting. The general, he said, replied: "Nothing would take the wind out of the sails of the insurgents better."

But where do the editorial pages stand on this? Only a few, such as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, have really staked out what could loosely be called an "antiwar" position. A few columnists, besides Neuharth, have turned hyper-critical, including the intrepid Joe Galloway of Knight Ridder. Neuharth and Galloway each have received high military honors; Hagel is a decorated Vietnam vet.

Galloway, unlike so many editorialists, has no trouble understanding that withdrawing is hardly dishonoring the thousands of Americans who had died or been badly wounded in Iraq. Perhaps that's because he has covered wars for 35 years, including each of our Iraq adventures.

When he wrote the following this month, Galloway was addressing the White House and the Pentagon, but he could have aimed it just as easily at the media: "Don't tell me we are going to stay the course. We are on the wrong course, and it only leads deeper into the quicksand. Tell me how we are going to change course."

I think this applies equally to the DC Democrats as I discussed below.