Thanks to Tom for turning me on to the Kaplan piece. I will read it when I get a chance as the thesis sounds quite plausible. I have a somewhat pesimistic view with regard to Tom's advice to the media however. I think journalists are obsessed with the body count for several reasons. First, it takes no work to write the story and you are guaranteed it will be printed. Provide the facts of the particular death and the mandatory body count "since Bush declared the end of all fighting and the beginning of an era of peace, prosperity and happiness in Iraq tantamount to Kubla Khan's pleasure-dome" and you have a story.

Second, successful rebuilding is to some degree a man bites dog story. How sexy is it to report that the lights are on for 18 hours a day. How interesting is it to describe the way the Army Corps of Engineers restored water service to X number of Iraqis. News always gives the gloom and doom even though a million acts of kindness and good will occur on a daily basis and keep the world going round.

Third, and more darkly, many (nay most) journalist hate our President (see reason one above with regard to misquoting and sneering at him) and reporting the difficulties allows them the pleasure of sticking a thumb in the eye of a high flying administration that just won one of the most startlingly successful military victories in the history of war.

Fourth, many journalists expected disaster in Iraq and reporting on any adversity allows them to hold on to the idea that they might have been right.

Some of these reasons above are pretty half-baked, but the consequences of these one-sided reports are more important anyway. If what Kaplan is saying is true, the media is well capable of creating the story for which it longs. Constant stories of gloom and doom can indeed turn the public against the war and then all of these journalist can write long stories about our defeat in Iraq and the hubris (a very fashionable word of late to describe America) of this President. Then they can come home and write the longwinded books: I can't wait for "Vietnam to Iraq: Reaping the Whirlwind of Imperial Hubris."

This blog is becoming a rant -- I think you probably get my point by now which is this -- the media is going to keep reporting exactly what it has been and it is up to the administration to demonstrate irrefutably that progress is being made and it is up to all of us to keep the reports in perspective.

- posted by Anonymous @ 6:17 PM