Meandering Thoughts on CNN, Iran and President Bush

I've been remiss in my blogging duties over the past few days due to a ridiculously intense work schedule, but I have a few minutes to run through some thoughts on what has happened in the news lately.

Here is a story from CNN's Cooper Anderson that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the media simply does not understand how to cover the Iraq War. Cooper's article is headlinned Soldiers Say Media Miss Iraq Story. The story contained 12 paragraphs. In the sixth graph he gives a soldiers account of how well things are going in Iraq:

The unit I spent the day with is one month shy of going home. The commander, Capt. Patrick Moffett, was very optimistic about progress in Iraq, and by some accounts Baquba is a real success story. Attacks have dropped 30-40 percent since last year, and the Iraqi police in the city actually are able to conduct some operations on their own.

The only other mention of media coverage or the situation on the ground is in the ninth paragraph:

Every soldier I talked to today said the media hasn't done a good job of telling the full story from Iraq. It's a complaint I've heard before, and certainly understand. I do think television tends to focus on the bombs and the bullets, the most dramatic headlines. So much of what happens here never makes the nightly news.

That's it. The remaining parts of the story are filler. Why have that headline and then ignore it for 75 percent of the article. Why not defend the media's coverage of Iraq or agree that it has been terrible. Anderson brings absolutely nothing to this argument other then to pat himself on the back for talking to a few soldiers and going on one patrol.

My only thought on his inaction is he does not believe the soldiers claims about the coverage is true. After all, how could a lowly corporal or private know what the American people should hear. I never had a thought one way or the other about Anderson, but I now place him firmly in the lightweight "I'm a journalist-celebrity" camp. Hopefully, Anderson's career as CNN's poster boy of the month will be shorter then Aaron Brown, who owns the title of smarmiest person ever to appear on TV.

The big news today is President Bush has officially taken responsibility starting the Iraq war based on faulty intelligence. I suppose this was done to calm those who say he refuses to admit his mistakes, but as far as I'm concerned its a moot point. As soon as it was obvious there were no WMD in Iraq, the official reason for overthrowing Saddam was negated. Bush did not have to say anything, the facts spoke for themselves.

This does not mean the war, in the end, is not worth the cost. Some 23 million people are free and voting as we speak to elect a government of their choice. If Iraq can be turned into a fully functioning democracy it will be an accomplishment comparable to turning rebuilding Germany and Japan into first class nations.

On the flip side of democracy we also heard from Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today. He decided to announce his thoughts on the Holocaust, stating that it was a myth, never happened, all those Jews that lived in Europe under Hitler are alive and well today. Just to clarify the issue to Iran, the German leadership called in the Iranian ambassador and said in no certain terms that the Holocaust did happen and Ahmadinejad were foolish and unnacceptable. The conversation did not have much of an impact on the Iranians.

In Ahmadinejad's defense, he is not the only one who thinks this way. There are dozens of neo-nazi-types out there who say they same thing. Fools of a feather....