For those of you who are, like me, geographically-challenged, Bush has not opened up another front in his War on Terror in some previously unheard-of part of the world. The title refers to my brief review yesterday of political blogs on the dark underside of the internet, in search of some support for the upcoming ‘stab-in-the-back’ interpretation of the disaster previously known as Iraq. This interpretation, as those of you with a working knowledge of the 20th century know, posits that "We (insert name of losing side) were winning until we were stabbed in the back by (insert name of scapegoat). "
Recent indications from the Republican congressional leadership are that the upcoming scapegoat will be essentially everyone else -- but especially the liberal media, for reporting only the bad news from Iraq. By implication, there must be some good news, right? Vice President Cheney drove the point home, recently, with his statement that the U.S. has made "enormous progress" in Iraq. By further implication, someone must be reporting that good news somewhere.
So, taking my cue from previous diarists such as Maccabee and DLup, I decided to look in the right blogosphere for some of this good news so that, hopefully, I can give all of you the heads up and we can all avoid a lot of needless embarrassment down the road.
Before plunging in, let me warn you that I did not spend an inordinate amount of time on each of the blogs I visited. There are three reasons for this. First, I can only stand so much before I begin checking to see that my passport is in order; reviewing, once again, the Canadian immigration rules; and calling the schools to make sure my kids are safe. I do not have Maccabee’s intestinal fortitude, and therefore confined my visit to one day – Thursday of this week. Secondly, I looked only at the headline stories and obvious links, and didn’t stop to read any of the comments. I mean, when I go to the toilet, I finish and flush – I don’t need to look. And finally, I figured that since Buckshot Cheney insists things are going swimmingly, then that ‘good news’ ought to be fairly jumping off the screen at me. So here goes. For those of you into S&M, I’ve provided links below, although if you’re like me, you’ll have to go into your browser tools and unblock these sites.
First up was the National Review, and lo and behold, there were no lead articles on the war in Iraq, period. Just the usual about the traitorous congressional debates, culture wars, presidential campaigns, and the upcoming crusades in Iran.
At Pajamas Media, there was some good news. "Thunderous booms were heard across Baghdad". (Apparently, Thor is now part of the coalition of the willing. Loki has that cushy consulting job at FEMA.) Also, American forces raided a mosque in Baghdad, without bloodshed. That’s good news. And finally, "Operation Imposing the Law" began yesterday in the provinces, only one week after it was supposed to begin. (Really! Who comes up with these names? When the American soldiers leave, it’ll be "Operation Let the Chaos Resume".)
I could not fail to check out Powerline, of course. How does Harvard turn these people out? But again, nothing about Iraq, only attacks on Murtha. But I did find this once-in-a-lifetime sentence: "Don't miss John's discussion of the Under Secretary's response to the Inspector General draft report finding Douglas Feith's review of the CIA's judgment that Saddam's secular Baathists could not cooperate with radical Islamists." Feeling a little possessive? Why not "Islam’s radicals?"
Here’s one I wasn’t familiar with: Counterterrorism Blog. But I figured, link from RedState, founder worked for Oxley, and Iraq is the War on Terror, right? But no, all stories from Somalia, North Korea, India, and Pakistan – which now has its very own Taliban. There were some links to AP reports of the recent festivities in Baghdad, as described above, but that’s about it.
Rightwing Nuthousesounds promising. Unfortunately there’s just a very short post for today about ‘America’s mayor.’ Some relevant stuff in yesterday’s post, though, especially this summation of reports that Maliki may have let Sadr get away – "Is there no one in Iraq with the vision and the guts to lead the country to something better?" No, that doesn’t sound like the kind of stuff Unka Dick was talking about, either.
At Little Green Footballs, most of the coverage seemed to be concerned with the war on Terror in other foreign countries, like Iran, France, Spain, and Utah. Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds notes that a B-1 bomber was seen over Baghdad. Is that good news or bad news? Depends on which way it was headed, I guess.
At Mich . . ., Miiicc, . . . MMMMiiiicch ---- ---- AAAaaarrrggh!!! I can’t say it, but here’s the link, the good news is Elvis has left the building – I mean al Sadr has left Iraq, and no one can find him. That must be where that B-1 was headed. Apparently, bin Ladin has now been knocked down to number 3 on the "wanted dead or alive" list, right after Carmen SanDiego.
I looked at RedState next (you gotta look at RedState), but I have to warn you, my computer crashed. Truth. Something about having dKos up at the same time, I think. Kind of like the old days, with Jack Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander. Anyway, nothing jumps out here, except a link to the same stuff as Pajamas Media. And Al-Maliki apparently gave a "stern warning" to the "militants in Kerbala" to throw down their guns. The Baghdad Blockbuster obviously still has copies of "High Noon". And our former commander in Afghanistan says we don’t know where bin Ladin is, hence his fall in the standings, noted above.
Barely a mouse click away, I found Right Wing News, which was chock full of, well, right wing news. But nothing about the war, just more stuff about traitors. Boy, you get the idea from these blogs that there are way more traitors than soldiers in this war, which has got to be a first. Think about it. By the way, someone needs to check the archives here – Mr. Right Wing News is going to be consulting for presidential candidate Duncan Hunter.
The Minority Report, temporarily joins the majority by confirming that B-1 bomber sighted over Baghdad. I guess that this is good news, indicating that the Iraqi’s (at least in Baghdad) are no longer afraid to look up. Or maybe looking down is just a very unattractive alternative.
And finally, at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, which aims most of its fonts in John Murtha’s general direction, there is a lengthy piece on how we got the leader of al-Qaida-in-Iraq – oops (update), no we didn’t get him. Maybe we winged him. But it’s "only a matter of time." What’s with this "al-Qaida-in" stuff? Has anyone noticed how the administration no longer tells us that they’ve gotten the number 2 or 3 man at al-Qaida? Instead, they’ve given them each their own cub-scout troop. I was in a convenience store last week, and I swear I bought a candy bar from the leader of al-Qaida-in-Mapco. But back to the Rottweiler, I did strike the mother lode in this little nugget: a reference to John Murtha "and his socialist backstabbers". So little time and so many to scapegoat.
So that’s it, an even dozen. I could have made it a baker’s dozen, but even Bush doesn’t listen to Baker, so why should I?
Now it’s possible that since the time I’ve looked at these sites, one or more have updated to give us some of that ‘feel-good’ news from the front that we all have been expecting any Friedman, now. But I doubt it. The only good news that comes out of Iraq, the only good news that will be coming out of Iraq, is when one of our soldiers receives his or her orders to come home. There hasn’t been much of that good news lately, and when it happens, if it happens, it will probably be reported on those sites as bad news.