The other night a caller on a radio talk show (100.3 FM here in the Twin Cities) complained that the mainstream media has done a very poor job of showing the positive side of things in Iraq. He said he had served in the northern and western parts of Iraq, and so knew more what was going on than reporters in Baghdad.
He mentioned children going to school, new hospitals being built, women voting, and a positive attitude by most Iraqis toward the American soldiers.
The conservative talk show host was sympathetic but made the point that the problem was the Bush administration doing a poor job of publicizing the good being accomplished. (More below)
To me, the question is not whom to blame for the good news not getting out, whether it's the mainstream media or the Bush administration. Clearly, if the Bush administration had any competence, it would have carefully monitored and documented all reconstruction work in Iraq, if only to show where the dollars went. Unfortunately, the only monitoring has come after the fact, and has revealed massive fraud, corruption, and waste. And instead of giving solid facts regarding the reconstruction of Iraq, the Bush administration dishonors the genuine contributions of soldiers like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman by churning out the propaganda of hyped up, falsified stories.
If, after three years of war, we're not getting lots of good news, it's not a conspiracy on the part of the media or liberals. It's because the bad news is overwhelming and incessant. Soldiers keep dying, women and children keep getting killed as collateral damage (maybe the same ones who were going to school or voting), the war effort keeps sucking up billions more of our money, and the Bush administration keeps claiming everything is wonderful. The more they pretend, the more we see through their lies, and the less we can trust them, even if they occasionally make a valid point.
I'm also uneasy about the soldier who was complaining about media coverage. He sounded sincere and believable, except that his list of what the media didn't cover well (schools, hospitals, women voting, Iraqi appreciation for Americans) sounded too much like a canned list. Also, note that women could vote under Saddam Hussein and on the whole had more rights than in other Muslim countries. Was this soldier ignorant of Iraqi history? Was he ignorant of the carnage occurring in other parts of Iraq? How much did he really know about the efforts to rebuild the country? I don't know.
The next caller on the show suggests that, with those on wingnut side, their complaints are often the result of listening to only one side. The next caller complained about how liberals weren't up in arms about the huge oil-for-food scandal. This caller had clearly fallen for Norm Coleman's dog-and-pony show. It's obvious that Republican higher-ups gave Coleman, a freshman senator, the task of creating a diversion from the Bush administration's incompetence. Put all the blame on the oil-for-food scandal on the UN and Hussein, and ignore the role played by the U. S. government and U. S. corporations.
Liberals, who not only have a wide variety of views but also listen to a wide variety of views, didn't buy Coleman's quackery. Those on the right ate it up.