Entropy Enough of the Repugs/Laura Ingrams meme about reporters. I guess Lara Logan and Pepe Escobar just sipped lattes and copied stringers work(not).

Rudi,

I was pretty careful to make sure I wasn’t going down that route. This is about blaming the so-called liberal media bias for ignoring the “good news.” It’s a realization that reporters, by and large, are ambulance chasers – the same is true here as it is over there. And stating that reporters are confined to the green zone without US escort only illustrates the danger and lack of security in Baghdad. That said, there is not fighting on every block, in every neighborhood and in every street. There are places in Baghdad that are basically peaceful. That’s simply a statement of fact. Reporters in Iraq don’t go to a neighborhood and write a story about about the lack of violence there for the same reason reporters don’t go to my neighborhood here in Texas and write a story. That’s not some right-wing conspiracy, it’s reality and the way things work!

There isn’t going to be any advantage to doing otherwise. He might end up being dumped like Shinseki–or being dumped like Pace.

And the fate of Powell’s reputation is also instructive.

Let’s see what he says in September.

Well, first of all, the entire city of Baghdad is not some kind of war zone with street-to-street fighting. Most of the conflict takes place at borders and along main streets – places where tribe and sect intermix and battle for supremacy. Many parts of Baghdad are firmly ensconced in areas that don’t see much violence – they are the sleepy neighborhoods that few hear about.

The “reporter” from “some newspaper” is probably like 99% of reporters “stationed” in Baghdad and spends all or most of his/her time in the Green Zone, only sallying forth when embedded with US troops. It just so happens that US troops don’t spend time in the aforementioned sleepy neighborhoods in Iraq. Similarly, the Iraqi locals used as stringers for these reporters spend the bulk of their time reporting the news of the conflict and not in the back alleys of Baghdad.

And just to be clear, this is not a criticism but is a simple fact of life in Iraq and the news business. As a comparison, read about the violent neighborhoods in your own city or town in the local paper. The impression is often that these areas are filled with and run by violence even though violence is actually relatively rare. When nothing is happening, there is nothing to report – similarly, when there is nothing happening in parts of Baghdad, there is nothing to report there.

I read in the June 13th issue of USA Today Gen Petraeus’s comment:

“When Gen. David Petraeus drives through the streets of Iraq’s capital, he sees “astonishing signs of normalcy” in half, perhaps two-thirds of Baghdad.
“I’m talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks — big ones, markets that are very vibrant,” says Petraeus, commander of the roughly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The scenes provide a sign that the new strategy in Iraq is working, although many problems remain, he told USA TODAY in an interview Wednesday”

He seems to be prejudging the surge and that has put doubts in my mind. I remember reading is some newspaper (can’t remember which one) a reporter stationed in Baghdad asking where the Hell are these grass soccer stadiums and big amusement parks? He sure hasn’t seen anything like that. There are two small amusement parks he knows of, both with old broken down rides that are dusty and dirty with no electricity to run the rides or much else.

Secondly, the landscape has changed. While the anti-Bush/Cheney folks fight every day to keep their foils alive and well, all you need to do is to read Redstate, Townhall, et al for a few days to realize there is no longer a pro-Bush/Cheney faction out there. (Don’t confuse respect for the Office of President/CIC as support for George Bush/Dick Cheney.)

I don’t see how Petraeus would be motivated to lie to remain the general of a failed mission (if that is how he sees it come September), when the man who would be the beneficiary of that lie would hardly be capable of furthering his career.