The New Road

CBS not backing down

CBS appears to be shirking the right wing media choke chain. They hit back with a two fisted report that covers both Bush and Kerry flip-flops.

In other news, a Wall Street Journal sent this message to friends about the situation in Iraq. Choice quotes:

I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't.

Then this:

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war.

Then on to:

In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health, which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers-- has now stopped disclosing them.

To cap it off:

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

She has to be wrong, Allawi says, We will have those elections in Iraq on time next year, because that is what the vast majority of Iraqis want." And our dear President says, "We are winning, defeating terrorists in Iraq. Unfortunately the media have not been covering these significant gains in Iraq." Right.

Perhaps McNamara can explain it a little bit with this insight about Vietnam, "One reason the Kennedy and Johnson administrations failed to take an orderly, rational approach to the basic questions underlying Vietnam was the staggering variety and complexity of other issues we faced.  Simply put, we faced a blizzard of problems, there were only twenty-four hours in a day, and we often did not have time to think straight.".