This morning, John Tierney posted something that seems
incredibly cavalier
I realize that we have a duty to report suicide bombings in the Middle East, especially when there's a spate as bad as in recent weeks. And I know the old rule of television news: if it bleeds, it leads. But I'm still puzzled by our zeal in frantically competing to get gruesome pictures and details for broadcasts and front pages.
Well John, consider the fact that Americans are not allowed to see the caskets of US servicemen laid to rest. In fact, for the first time since the Air Force existed, the Bush Administration hides the caskets from view. (privacy, they whisper) It's more like...if you show them the costs of the war, they won't want to pay it.
Cameras rarely tell the tale of the literally tens of thousands of amputees, and burn victims. And it's all tragedy. Guiatrists with no fingers. Dads who will never take a walk with their daughters. Soldiers whose wounds will keep them from ever seeing a sunset. And over a thousand children that are now orphans.
The costs of this war in dollars are also rarely reported and obfuscated and separated from the national budget.
Reporters over there rarely get to venture out and when they do it's in an armored vehicle along routes so violent they have to be raced through and guarded.
So what is left but suicide bombings to report? You should be grateful that the press has finally come to life and is finally noticing SOMETHING over there and is reporting on it regularly.
I sort of feel like if it's OK to show us the labyrinthin circus tent new government they are forming, then it would also be a good thing for all Americans to gaze upon the havoc we have wrought.