Remember the men and women in the armed forces of the American Republic are not politically motivated, but that doesn’t mean service members don’t have really good opinions (Discretion is advisable).

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I don’t believe in doing that for a couple of reasons, though. Nearest to my heart is I have two draft age sons now (as well as daughters). Secondarily, it’d likely finish off the professional military as we’ve known it since Vietnam.

I’ve been saying to my wife for a while now, the fastest way for us get out of Iraq is to put the Congress and senate over there in until a solution is found. They don’t come home until the soldiers do.
Every member that voted against giving soldiers a 1:1 ratio of time served to time off should watch this. Lindsay Graham are you listening?

And we ask our soldiers to carry this burden, and we pile more upon them. Fifteen months is a long time to put up with this crap day-in, day-out. The ’surge’ plan is morphing to place the troops on the next rotation for fifteen months, and those troops who did the first rotation may be going back for another extra-long deployment soon after that.

CNN, MSNBC, FOX and other channels have reduced air time for political and world news and supplemented it with stories about celebrity scandals, small town murder mysteries, and sports.

As non-liberals will remind you, while you may resent that Fox has often parted from the liberal media lockstep party line, non-liberals avoid Fox as much as any other teevee (and associated radio) mainstream programming because it is so tacky. Fox in particular was a pioneer in tackiness. Nowadays we have the female Geraldo Rivera, a.k.a. Greta van Facelife, Fox’s celebrity mole and unofficial prosecuting attorney-questioner, we have a news anchor in Sheperd Smith (sp?) who is as loud as or louder overall than Hannity, and on the news show you see gimmicky graphics (those stupid images of Saturn and Sputnik satellites) and stupid sound effects aimed at people with an MTV-level young-child attention span, which Fox pioneered on its pro sports broadcasting. (And now we have, complete with contemporary nose-picker acronym abuse, “FSN,” or Fox Sports Network. New Year’s Day show? “FSN2K5″ [gag].

News of the Week Doesn’t Grab Public’s Attention; Harry Potter Book Widely Anticipated

Rudi:

Another important factor is that real investigative journalism cost money. The “cheapening” of news is both financial and intellectual.

Bottom-Line Pressures Now Hurting Coverage, Say Journalists