Friday, February 29, 2008

Less TV coverage of Iraq

There is hide nor hair of the mainstream media anywhere reporting the success of the surge in Iraq. Ahhh but alas, one year ago in January.....
One year ago, liberal journalists depicted the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq as a certain failure. “A lot of people are going to go to bed tonight terrified,” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews opined just minutes after President Bush announced the policy on January 10, 2007. Other journalists were only slightly more subtle. “Many experts warn, it’s too little, too late,” NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski argued on the January 8, 2007 Nightly News. The next morning on NBC’s Today, the network’s graphic describing Iraq was “Lost Cause?”

At the same time, leading Democrats left themselves no wiggle room as they, too, denounced the surge. Senator Barack Obama called it “wrong-headed” and countered with a proposal to pull nearly all U.S. troops out of Iraq by March 2008. Senator Hillary Clinton came back from a quick trip to Iraq to declare: “I am opposed to this escalation,” while another Democratic candidate, Senator Joe Biden, blasted the troop surge as “a tragic mistake.”


Looks to me like the mainstream media is determined to undermine Republicans.

One year later, the President’s surge strategy is well on its way to succeeding. The Iraqi parliament has passed several laws meeting required political reconciliation benchmarks. Attacks in Baghdad have fallen up to 80 percent in the past twelve months, Reuters reported February 16. Deaths among Iraqi military forces and civilians have dropped by more than two-thirds, from more than 2,000 per month in early 2007 to fewer than 600 per month since November.

And U.S. military deaths have also declined, falling from 126 in May 2007 to 40 in January 2008 and just 29 so far in February, with two days left in the month. Yet this good news seems to have diminished the media elite’s interest in broadcasting any news from Iraq.

.....Does anyone think the media would have let John McCain off the hook had the surge failed as spectacularly as it has succeeded?

Read more...

H/T to Rich Noyes, NewsBusters

1 comment:

Michelle Morgan-Coole said...

Funny that.

I know I read somwehere either yesterday or today (but now I can't figure out where) that everything is falling apart in Afghnistan. Part of what was discussed was the Afghan government only controlling 30% of the country. Of course, further down you are told that the Taliban only controls 10% (not the remaining 70% as you might have thought).

Anyway, I was noticing that it was the same its all for naught, doom and gloom stuff that we're use to seeing. Except this time it was Afghanistan. Could have swore they were talking about Iraq. [shakes head]