QOTD

Marie Colvin:

The reason why Iraq is so hard is not because the US lacks military power or brave soldiers but because America is a democracy. That is the short answer. Now allow me to elaborate. . .

Firstly, its the nature of the press to report bad news. All attempts to start a good news newspaper have failed. People love to read bad news. A story about a mother and child safely walking down the road in Baghdad does not make it to the front page or the evening news. . .

Secondly, it boosts newspaper circulation and hence profits to exaggerate. Thus calling the Iraqi situation a 'civil war' helps grab the attention of the reader. I think it is closer to Tombstone or Dodge City in the Old West than a Civil War. Calling it a civil war would be news to the Iraqis as I pointed out in an earlier article.

Only 27% of Iraqis think that a Civil War is going on, compared to 61% who do not. So the news media thinks they know better than the Iraqis who live there. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. We need to boost our ratings or our circulation.

Compounding the problem are the votrepreneurs (politicians) who feed on the drum beat of bad news like sharks. As stated in earlier articles, the way the system work is that opposing votrepreneurs must undermine each other by portraying each other as failures.

In this case, the Democrats to shift the goal posts so that their Republican opponents are perceived as failures. So if everything is not hunky dory by next Thursday in Iraq, then the whole war is a failure. Any success is ignored. Never mind that a dangerous dictator, Saddam Hussein is gone. Never mind that Iraq has its first elections and taking its first fragile steps to democracy.