But if a soldier claims the other side is doing bad things it either gets contested immediately or ignored by the left & the MSM. Obvious bias and not the kind that leads to people thinking you mean well when you show concern for the troops.

Alex, we all know the other side are a bunch of sick maniacs. No need to press the issue there.

We have and must have a higher standard for everything. Including war.

Alex, we all know the other side are a bunch of sick maniacs. No need to press the issue there.

Posted by D-Vega
June 4, 2007 4:41 PM |

With all due respect, there are most certainly MANY people in this country that don't know that fact.

Im lauging here at my desk.....ha...one would just have to ask...why are you on a conservative blog? I mean, are ya suffering from the stupid gene or what?
Posted by Ipwnallah
June 4, 2007 4:30 PM |



Maybe rmiller enjoys a discussion, not just an echo chamber. No reason to insult him.

I take the bad as well as the good, but too many on the Left won't acknowledge progress. We could turn Iraq into a Jeffersonian democracy tomorrow(no, I'm not saying that'll happen) and they'd yell about how it was all propoganda.
Posted by RtWingNtCase
June 4, 2007 4:43 PM |

I can relate to what you are saying. I hope we do succeed, and it is hard, listening to the reporting in the media, to find cause for optimism. My only objection to the good news is when it comes package in kool-aid such as this:

"This measure is steadily cutting down on the set-a bomb whack jobs from other countries. The measure has also collared several suspected terrorists. Now, if we could just issue liberals ID cards....hmmm..."
"Fighting the liberal downward spiral, one flush at a time"

Good news does not have to be packaged so clearly idealogically.

"Earlier today my kneejerk reaction was to cross-post this in 10 different places, clown on your story and cook up a bag of popcorn. Taking a couple hours to decide was a good thing, because in spite of how much I disagree with you, I did get to feeling like the right-wing latched onto you and hoisted you up as something you honestly weren't. Whether people say it to you or not, if the GOP folks had it to do all over again, your editorial would have never made it into the Post."

Spare us the piety kent. We get the message...your little trolling expedition failed because nobody took the bait and ripped Matt because of his past.

Clearly you and the other lefty trolls are the only ones who seem to have a problem with it, so why do your part to stop bigotry and shut up?

Seven marines lives are on the line here, if the terrorists actually did this then those soldiers should be set free.

Just a point of clarity that shows liberal ignorance of things military in general. It's a minor fact that pretty much every private int he Army, Air Force, and Marines, and every Seamna in the Navy knows...

MARINES ARE MARINES, NOT "SOLDIERS"!

Posted by rmiller
June 4, 2007 4:56 PM

I will take Mr. Sanchez' reportage, ideological worts and all over a Has Been Press reporters feigned objectivity anyday. It's all in their choice of vocabulary. Also, their wrap up lines always reveals their bias.

kent,

Why does Mike_M's status matter? Or are you gearing up for the old chickenhawk argument?

That argument was bullshit under Bill Clinton, and it's bullshit now. Civilians have control, and the people employ the Army. Or would you have us go to a facist state where you had to have served to have any say about policy?

"Mike_M - are you a veteran?"

I'm not sure how my military status effects your failed little plot to play upon the imagined prejudices of conservatives. Perhaps you'd like to explain.

But I think you owe both us and Matt an apology.

I'll wait.

It's all in their choice of vocabulary. Also, their wrap up lines always reveals their bias.
Posted by Tracer
June 4, 2007 5:05 PM |

Those of us who pay attention recognize that. Take, for example, John Edwards in last nights debate. Any thinking liberal would have to have questions about his judgement. He stated that he had all the info that he needed to make a rational decision about supporting or opposing the war in Iraq, and yet he said he made a mistake in voting for it.
Now, I'm not interested in giving more "anti-Edwards" ammunition, just letting you know that some of us liberals are paying attention.

Mr. Sanchez is willing to go out, with the troops, wherever they might need to go. Contrast this with the MSM, whose reporters spend most of their time in their hotel rooms collecting reports from bystanders. Posted by mightysamurai June 4, 2007 2:36 PM |

This does a diservice to the 181 reporters and meida aides who have died in Iraq so far, you know the ones who are sitting in their hotel rooms most of the time.

I could give a rat's ass.

You know what I think? I think you didn't really have a point. I think you assumed that your "argument" would stir up some white guilt and prevent us from responding. I guess you didn't count on the fact that conservatives believe that a criminal is a criminal is a criminal, no matter what their situation.
Posted by mightysamurai
June 4, 2007 2:53 PM |

I could care less what you think.

And yet, you continue to respond. Curious.

Reality appears to disagree with you.

More scare-pics? Selectively culled from the hundreds of thousands of people waving American flags? I thought you would have something better.

Well I thought you'd be okay with it. After all, you seem to have no problem with the MSM selectively reporting on the violence in Baghdad and claiming all of Iraq is in the midst of a "civil war".

"When Baghdad is secured WE WILL KNOW IT whether it comes from Fox news or NPR you will know it."


Horse hockey. If you believe that statement tell me something. How many senators read the WMD report before sending troops in? You do not here about it in the MSM. What makes you think they would tell us anything that did not fit the lib model?



Why are there so few embeds anyways?


Because it takes guts to be shot at and I hear the pool there is really nice. (that’s a joke)

Im lauging here at my desk.....ha...one would just have to ask...why are you on a conservative blog? I mean, are ya suffering from the stupid gene or what?

Posted by Ipwnallah
June 4, 2007 4:30 PM

Dude, rmiller is one of the most open-minded and fair individuals with left-leaning sympathies to visit RWN. But besides that, you call him "stupid" for being on a conservative blog? Is that because the information he gets here is indicative of his level of intelligence? Or is his attraction to RWN a sign of his lack of intelligence?

You think you insulted rmiller, but the ironic joke on you is that you really insulted yourself and any other person who thinks RWN is a place where smart people like to hang out and discuss things.

Most people who post here would say that rmiller is smart to come to RWN for other viewpoints instead of relying exclusively on the MSM, Kos, the DU, or any other lefty blog. In fact, it's a sign of his intelligence that he ventures out of the liberal echo chamber and respectfully engages and listens to the other side. What is a shame for the sensible and decent folk on your side is that, by coming here and listening to you, he gets a picture of conservatives that ain't all flattering, if you catch my drift. So, good work, Ipwnallah. You're serving your side well.

I could give a rat's ass.

Mightysamurai, you really don't care that so many journalists have lost their lives covering the Iraq war? Is there anything tragic to you about the loss of unarmed civilian life in war? Unless you think that all journalists are nothing more than a disposable enemy, I can't imagine what rationale you could possibly give that warrants such callous cold-heartedness.

"When Baghdad is secured WE WILL KNOW IT whether it comes from Fox news or NPR you will know it."

Horse hockey. If you believe that statement tell me something. How many senators read the WMD report before sending troops in? You do not here about it in the MSM. What makes you think they would tell us anything that did not fit the lib model?
Posted by ninerdog
June 4, 2007 5:57 PM |

Umm...because this not about libs and cons. This is really about the US.
Even Mr. Bush has staked the future of the US position in Iraq on "the surge".
No matter who the next pres is, Iraq is going to loom large in our rear view mirror. Blame the libs and Dems all you want, if the American people elect a Dem Congress and Dem Pres. next time around, that is a verdict.
Idealogy notwithstanding, the fact is that Mr. Bush and the Reps need to make the case for American soldiers dying beyond the next election cycle. And that case is not being made.
In fact, in it being lost. I still await a Rep. candidate who will argue that the war in Iraq needs to be fought on the same scale as currently. Or even more intensely.

Ninerdog-
I may very well be mistaken as I point out above. It would not be the first time my network router has caused trouble. I'm assuming my nmae is mu on the comments section now for stating the obvious? ;-)
But one thing I am clearly NOT mistaken about is k_B's troll status.

huck-
Chalk this up as one of those rare occasions I agree with you. As much as I find "ipwnallah"'s screen name amusing, he was wrong in calling rmiller stupid for coming here. You are correct in presuming that many people go to the sites of their politcal opponents for debate and to see
how the other side thinks. I would post and discuss at leftist sites if they were not bad about banning any right winger who sets foot in the place.

And leftist newbies don;t get alot of slack, because sadly so many of them are blatant trolls.

"Trench Raider"

oopsie...
"my name is mud" I meant to say.

TR

Posted by trenchraider
June 4, 2007 6:38 PM |


Could be. He could also be pissed about his blog only having 5 comments and this one gets way more.

Posted by huckupchuck
June 4, 2007 6:13 PM |

Appreciate the testimonial.

Aw, lay off. He's new here.
Posted by mightysamurai
June 4, 2007 6:15 PM |

You, too, are correct.

That'd be because you weren't paying attention.
Posted by n_obrain
June 4, 2007 6:41 PM |

Or that you were only paying attention to the issues that float your boat. If I'm a liberal, how can you attribute to me issues that I know nothing about?

I can't type this afternoon:
"That has to be a record on this site for a banned user to come back as a sock puppet that quickly."

and...

"But then as leftist (the guys who think the rules do not apply to them) this sort of behavior should be no suprise to me."

...is what i should have said.

TR

After all, you seem to have no problem with the MSM selectively reporting on the violence in Baghdad and claiming all of Iraq is in the midst of a "civil war".

That's exactly what you were saying before The Surge, that Baghdad was not out of control and needed a change. That everything was going well. Then, we had numerous new efforts to pacify Baghdad last year and now The Surge.

And you can also selectively use all of and midst . The three major factions in Iraq are at war with each other. The Sunnis want to hold some semblance of power, the Shiites get the power that they have wanted, the Kurds for their own state. That is the issue in Iraq. It can be defined as civil war simply or professionally. The media leads with the shittiest news is there, but the truth is there for anyone who wants it. The amount of troops there will not resolve that. You can write all the stories you want about nice neighborhoods and schools being built. The over-whelming issue is forming a country out of gang members who were once ruled by the baddest gang leader. That's up to them. A band of death cultists, according to you all.

Posted by CoolCzech
June 4, 2007 4:52 PM |

Thank you.

Posted by libliever
June 4, 2007 7:25 PM |

The log book for it has 6 names on it. Who they are is a mystery. I cant find the names. However to the point of my anger. We can not believe what the press tell us. Pro or Con. Holy crap we get more honesty from commercials than from the news.

I'm strictly a media embed and will be writing weekly reports for several publications and doing two radio programs.

I came with my eyes open and I'm really shocked by what I'm seeing.

It's not the "War" the media has sold us.

www.matt-sanchez.com





We knew this. Kent is fighting a up hill battle if he thinks that the liberal news media has reported the truth about Iraq.

I have a motto I live by "Believe the opposite of what the liberal media reports and realize the news that they leave out too."

I have been paying attention to the news media for years and despite what Kent may think about the news media they are wrong about 95% of the time.

I guess Kent has forgot about all the lies and misreporting they did about the Soviet Union when Ronald reagan was standing up to it and defeating them wth his massive military build up and even Star Wars.After all of them years of reporting they were wrong and Reagan was right.

Nothing turned out like the News media reported for all of them years and now he expects us to believe them now? I don't think so.

Just like in the 80's for all of them years they are doing the samething in this decade and will be eating crow again about Iraq.

I already know that the liberals and news media's all going to be eating crow about Iraq in the coming years, simply because you cannot believe anything they report.

If Kent is so sure of what he thinks he knows then how come the Democrats just funded the war after saying that they would'nt? Even the liberal news media reported it like Bush would flinch because of his low poll numbers,etc and not the Dem's. but who did? The Democrats did and they will continue to.

The Liberal News Media does not even remember all of the reason's why we first went to Iraq in the first place and while everybody else has been moving the goal posts concerning Iraq.

There is Bush standing just as strong as ever actually accomplishing the GOALS HE LAID OUT and was elected to do too.

And despite the amnesia by the liberals and their news media we have already accomplished far more than they said we would from the beginning.

Why would Kent continue to believe people who have already gotten it wrong about Iraq? It has gone far more Bush's way than what any of the liberals predicted. I'm not going to repeat all of our accomplishments because liberals have a mental block when it comes to the truth.

But we have already accomplished all of this and with the lowest casuelty rate of any past war like this one in Iraq. Compared to any other war that has been faught. we are winning and the enemy is losing.

No we are not finished yet fulfilling all of the goals that were laid out in the beginning but we are on our way to fulfilling them goals.

And when we are finished America will be safer,the Iraqi's will be safer,and we will have planted a democracy right slap-dad in the middle of a place no liberal thought we could(They have amnesia about past times America did it)except for Bush and the supporters he has left.

Well keep up the good work and God Bless.

Posted by ninerdog
June 4, 2007 7:31 PM

I think Niner that one has to wend his way carefully in this here thing they call life.
There is always an element of truth but one has to listen or read carefully decide how much is truth driven and how much is agenda driven. Point is the amount of journalism going on is in the decline. NYC had what? Five dailies at one time, not anymore.
Take Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, who is trying to buy the WSJ. All the liberals are up in arms about it because he owns so much of the MSM and now he'll own even more.
Apparently, it doesn't matter that Rupert is left of center either.
The people complaining are worried that he'll slash the editorial section and turn it into personality driven news like some of his FOX programming has become. Not there isn't anything wrong with the O'Reillys of the world but they aren't reporting the news they are editorializing it.
That he'll slash reporters in the field etc etc all for the almighty buck.
But to finish my rant it isn't up to a reporter to decide what is good news or bad news. His/her job is to report what is going on. Period.
Now we have less and less reporting more and more editorials.

"I would stop and help out a right-wing veteran just as I would a left-winger who served."

Gay-baiting is your idea of "helping" people? I don't have to have served to understand fully that you're a bigoted idiot who gets some kind of perverse pleasure out of setting people up for personal attacks.

And lo and behold, this armchair strategist called you out, exposed you, and left you staggering backwards in defense after nobody played your game.

Screw off kent. You sound more like a liberal rhetoric professor than anybody I've known that's served in the military. If you're going to do anybody more "favors", why don't you go gay bait the left wing blogs. You'll find a lot more interest there I'm sure.

Posted by fiza June 4, 2007 9:48 PM

Apparently, like most liberals, you truly hate gay people.

Fiza, how many times do you have to be told. You are a proven liar and we don't want you here.

Kinda like Chuck Hagel.

Posted by D-Vega
June 4, 2007 9:57 PM

Ouch! D-Vega, my man, that one's gonna leave a mark!

But you gotta admit Matt's backround and his problem in the Marines (being investigated) is pretty strange.

Posted by fiza June 4, 2007 10:09 PM

His background? You mean his being gay? And since when is an investigation a problem? It isn't for Democrats, just Republicans. Like being gay.

Fiza, you are a bigot. And you aren't even good at it.

Take your lies elsewhere.

Posted by fiza June 4, 2007 10:24 PM

And since you have been caught in more than one lie, no one cares what you think about anything.

There's always a "but," isn't there?

Posted by CavalierX
June 4, 2007 10:35 PM |

Just what are you implying here with the but? Do you think the story in the link is a fabrication? If not, then Matt is being accused of lying to the Marines. I'll use BUT here again. But no big deal concerning that investigation, because Matt Sanchez is a big right wing supporter, so ho cares if he lies.

The Green Zone probably reminds many members of the media of the elite university campuses they attended and how edgy it was to go slumming in the surrounding high crime neighborhoods.

Posted by AlexinCT
June 4, 2007 10:58 PM

How convenient, you left out the Marine barrack attack under Reagan which the Iranians were involved in.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05...an.barracks.bombing/

You go from Carter to Clinton skipping over the old gipper.
Let me guess, you're going to say it was just one incident.
Well one is enough. 241 dead marines.

Well, well...what did I predict?
Kent/deadissue is gone now. His posts have been deleted and presumably he's banned.

I suppose that's what happens when you openly admit to being banned and turning around and making a new sock puppet.

But like he said, he had no respect for the rules....

I have to laugh....

Good work, 'mods!

"Trench Raider"

No, I don't hate gays.

Unless they're Conservatives, or simply disagreee with the Liberal talking points. Then you slimeballs get as vicious as when blacks dare to think for themselves. I am really amused when you sanctimonious Lib bastards expose yourselves as the anti-gay bigots and hate-mongers you really are.

Posted by CavalierX
June 4, 2007 11:23 PM


What's the message here?
MSM bad Sanchez good?

Sure there is media bias but how are you off setting that with an obviously pro military embedded reporter; an ex marine no less.
How the hell is he going to be objective?

"Unless they're Conservatives, or simply disagreee with the Liberal talking points. Then you slimeballs get as vicious as when blacks dare to think for themselves. I am really amused when you sanctimonious Lib bastards expose yourselves as the anti-gay bigots and hate-mongers you really are. "

Posted by CavalierX
June 4, 2007 11:19 PM |

So liberals are slimeballs, vicious, bastards, hate-mongers, and anti-gay? And you think that blacks are vicious when they dare think for themselves? Is that a typo or do you really think that way about blacks? Talk about being bigoted, wow! Nasty, nasty, nasty!
So you think I am anti gay because of my comments about Matt Sanchez? I believe that openly gay and lesbian men and women should be able to serve honorably in the Military, as many already have. However, they should not be able to openly have sexual relationships, unless married, while on base or off base if on duty. If on leave, or off base and off duty, men and women, whether heterosexual or gay, should be able to have relationships, preferably discrete, even if heterosexual, so as not to embarress the military. Officers, of course, are not allowed to fraternize with enlisted men or women, whether gay or heterosexual. If you define the above as bigoted, then I am bigoted.

The story here is that the legacy media isn't doing its job - that it's trying to do it on the cheap, without going to get the story, is too willing to report what it wants the story to be, too willing to skip stories that make Iraq look remotely successful.

They are failing in their only job: to report the news. This guy isn't the only one who pointed this out, for crying out loud the Rolling Stone had an article about how the press is blowing off their job and cowering in the green zone.

Posted by Christopher_Taylor
June 4, 2007 11:50 PM |


The NYT and CNN both reported the success of Anbar Province.

That doesn't sound to me as being anti war bias that is stating a fact. Now they may not have liked stating it but that is irrelevant. At least they had the stones to report it.

The NYT and CNN both reported the success of Anbar Province.

That doesn't sound to me as being anti war bias that is stating a fact. Now they may not have liked stating it but that is irrelevant. At least they had the stones to report it.


Posted by libliever

For a change.

Mightysamurai, you really don't care that so many journalists have lost their lives covering the Iraq war? Is there anything tragic to you about the loss of unarmed civilian life in war? Unless you think that all journalists are nothing more than a disposable enemy, I can't imagine what rationale you could possibly give that warrants such callous cold-heartedness.

You know what? I'll start caring about journalists killed in the Middle East when they stop doctoring photos to make Israel look bad, stop tagging along with terrorists to get photos and interviews, and stop propaganidizing for the enemy.

After all, you seem to have no problem with the MSM selectively reporting on the violence in Baghdad and claiming all of Iraq is in the midst of a "civil war".

That's exactly what you were saying before The Surge, that Baghdad was not out of control and needed a change.

I don't recall ever saying anything like that.

That everything was going well. Then, we had numerous new efforts to pacify Baghdad last year and now The Surge.

So what? That doesn't mean things weren't going well, just that it wasn't going fast enough.

And you can also selectively use all of and midst . The three major factions in Iraq are at war with each other.

Gangs in LA are at war with each other too. Does that make it a civil war?

The Sunnis want to hold some semblance of power, the Shiites get the power that they have wanted, the Kurds for their own state. That is the issue in Iraq. It can be defined as civil war simply or professionally.

Then so can LA.

The media leads with the shittiest news is there, but the truth is there for anyone who wants it. The amount of troops there will not resolve that. You can write all the stories you want about nice neighborhoods and schools being built. The over-whelming issue is forming a country out of gang members who were once ruled by the baddest gang leader. That's up to them. A band of death cultists, according to you all.

There you go again, attributing statements to me that I have never made.

You tell me, what you think these people want to do if they were allowed a victory in this city?

Posted by mattsanchez June 5, 2007 8:57 AM

Matt, I asked the same question in relation to the Israel/Palestenian situation. What would happen in the region if one side layed down their arms and stopped fighting, while the other did not.

In your case, here are the answers. If the American layed down their arms, stopped fighting, and left Iraq, the entire region woudl decend in violence, fighting, and a horrific death for anyone even suspected of supporting and helping the Americans (See Laos and Cambodia, Post-Vietnam-War).

However, if the Islam-O-Facists layed down their weapons and stopped fighting, the entire region would decend into PEACE!

What about these guys?
Hope you don't fall asleep!

Posted by libliever
June 4, 2007 11:51 PM

Well lib, I am an active duty veteran who has served in both Enduring and Iraqi freedom (for those who have not paid attention, those are the actual names of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars). You can link to all the sites you want, it makes no difference. I work and live with these people and those who agree with the defeatist left are a vast minority.

Posted by fiza
June 4, 2007 11:49 PM

You’re the one “gay bashing” Sanchez.

You know what? I'll start caring about journalists killed in the Middle East when they stop doctoring photos to make Israel look bad, stop tagging along with terrorists to get photos and interviews, and stop propaganidizing for the enemy.

That's sad.

You know what? I'll start caring about journalists killed in the Middle East when they stop doctoring photos to make Israel look bad, stop tagging along with terrorists to get photos and interviews, and stop propaganidizing for the enemy.
That's sad.

Posted by D-Vega
June 5, 2007 9:28 AM |


How about adding in falsifying stories that start riots and get innocent people killed. (newsweek)

I don't recall ever saying anything like that.

You don't remember stay the course ? Are you saying you are separating yourself from what the Reps and the Pres had been telling us up until Nov. '06?

So what? That doesn't mean things weren't going well, just that it wasn't going fast enough.

So now that's the spin? Rumsfeld was just a slow guy? We could have been doing the job a lot faster if he hadn't been there? There is no doubt mistakes were made in this war. Most of all the assumption that the Big 3 would come together for the greater good.

Gangs in LA are at war with each other too. Does that make it a civil war?

Yes, and? You saw earlier that I said that Iraq was sets of gang leaders finally freed from the most evil gang leader. Sadam started off as a gang member & leader on the streets of Baghdad.

The difference is LA is an American city. But if you ask people in Compton and South Central in the 80's were they living in a warzone, what do you think they would have said?

Then so can LA.

So.What.

There you go again, attributing statements to me that I have never made.

So you are saying that you do not subscribe to the right-wing's positioning Islam as the death cult? Or you don't think the right is positioning it that way?

The difference is LA is an American city.

Not according to http://nontroppo.org/blog/images/larally.jpg">these people.

Kinda like Chuck Hagel.
Posted by D-Vega
June 4, 2007 9:57 PM

Ouch! D-Vega, my man, that one's gonna leave a mark!

Posted by huckupchuck
June 4, 2007 10:04 PM

More like a swing and a miss you mean. Please reference to us how Chuck Hagel was refused campaign support and funding from the GOP? While your at it reference, the group of conservatives who did everythng they could to dispose of him by recruiting a former Democrat similarly as what happened to Senator Lieberman?

I didn't happen, execept in your fevered imagination.

And why is that, Vega?

It's very sad to think you or sam would have such animosity for an imaginary monolith like the media that you would assign indifference to the death of someone, for something someone else in their profession did somewhere else.

•Do you feel sad for drunk drivers crashing their cars and killing themselves?

Yes. That does not mean I think it was not their fault. Of course it was their fault. That is irrelevent to this discussion though.

•Do you feel sad for bank robbers or rapists that get killed committing their crimes?

No. You don't think all journalists are rapists and murderers, do you?

•Do you feel sad for the man that has a heart attack while beating his children?

No. How is any of this relevent, besides illustrating how much hatred you much feel for a noun. There are all types of journalists, you know. You are saying Daniel Pearl deserved to die. That's sad.

These supposed journalists are working diligently for the cause they believe in, which in many cases just happens to be anything and everything that will result in American defeat and humiliation. You'll have to forgive us for having so little compassion for the "journalists" that are actively supporting our enemies.

Did you even know who these people were that died? What their take on your policies were? You have no friggin' idea.

Spare me your indignation, Vega. I know we have journalists putting themselve in harms way to embed with the terrorists so they can get video of Americans being killed. I know we have journalists that, when the facts of the story do not fit thier preconceived notions, create news and pictures to fit their agenda. I know we have journalists that are against this war and feel it is there duty to stop it, no matter how many Americans have to die for that to happen.

Oh, you don't like my examples? Try this one. I feel the same thing for these journalists that embed with the enemy getting killed as I do for a terrorists bomber that dies and kills his entire family when the suicide bomb he is creating blows up in his own home. Like the journalists, it is a self-inflicted wound.

Remember, Nick Berg's father (yes, I know he was not a journalist) said "The terrorists killed their best friend." Says a lot for what it means to be a friend of terrorists.

Posted by StanW
June 5, 2007 10:24 AM |

Stan,

If you know who they are then please tell us so that we can see if your right. That is if you know who they are like you claim.

Adults are speaking here, crthns. Your childish opinions are neither needed nor desired.

Posted by StanW
June 5, 2007 11:12 AM |

So you dont actually know any reporters that have done this but you are sure that they are out there. No wonder you are in the minority.

Posted by Dick_Nixon June 5, 2007 11:40 AM

Oooops!

Posted by Dick_Nixon
June 5, 2007 11:40 AM |


WOW are you log winded.....

More like a swing and a miss you mean. Please reference to us how Chuck Hagel was refused campaign support and funding from the GOP? While your at it reference, the group of conservatives who did everythng they could to dispose of him by recruiting a former Democrat similarly as what happened to Senator Lieberman?

I didn't happen, execept in your fevered imagination.

Posted by Tracer
June 5, 2007 10:10 AM

It hasn't happened to Chuck Hagel yet because he hasn't gone up for re-election since he deviated from conservative orthodoxy on the war in Iraq. But you just wait. When it's time for Hagel to compete for the GOP nomination to run for his Senate seat, we'll see what happens. And if the Pat Toomey/Arlen Spectre primary fight is any indication of what Hagel has to look forward to, I'd say he's got a tough road ahead. Believe me, Tracer, if what I'm seeing with regard to conservative opinion on Hagel these days is any indication of things to come, he WILL be thrown under the bus by conservative hardliners come election time.

So you found one instance, shame on that reporter and on CNN, however this is not a widespread conspiracy.

Posted by idpanicman June 5, 2007 12:31 PM

So where is *YOUR* proof, crthns?

Oh, that's right, sorry. You don't have to post proof because your word should be enough to convince us all.

Posted by huckupchuck
June 5, 2007 12:24 PM

Huck, the comment was what had happened to Joe Lieberman and Cindy Sheehan. Those two examples were undenialble facts. You are arguing fantasy. You want me to believe in something that has not happened. You are even trying to claim that Arlen Spectre will receive such treatment when history suggests that you are wrong.

Your comments concerning what you believe will happen are irrelevant to this discussion (deflection) and are clear indications you suffer from cranial/rectal impaction. You need a course of anti-biotics for that fevered imagination of yours and a comealong. Or maybe a John Deere 9520.

Stan every time you open your mouth you prove why you are the minority in this country.

Posted by idpanicman June 5, 2007 12:43 PM

Whatever helps you sleep at night, crthns.

Posted by idpanicman
June 5, 2007 12:31 PM |



Wow ya call that one. The Dems and the libs in the press are for the terrorist. They want us to LOSE. If they were with us this would have been over years ago. That web site goes into great detail about this. If you’re a lib I would love to here you explain your party's actions. The vote to surrender. The vote to remove funding. Explain your positions on these things and explain how your hoping we as a country win this war. If your against us please explain how your going to convince the terrorists to not lop of your infidel head. Remember that they want all of us dead. Tell me how you will stand there and say BUT BUT I AM ON YOUR SIDE.

I did. It crashed

The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.

Posted by Free_thinker June 5, 2007 1:10 PM

What assessment? Who did this assessment?

Can you post the link to the report?

"Try working on your reading comprehension abilities before you post again.

Not only are you a sanctimonious prick, you're a stupid sanctimonious prick."

Posted by n_obrain
June 5, 2007 8:20 AM |

OK, n_obrain, here, in quotes, is exactly what CavalierX said:

"Then you slimeballs get as vicious as when blacks dare to think for themselves."

Posted by CavalierX
June 4, 2007 11:19 PM |

Read the statement by CavalierX carefully, n_obrain. I, and most other readers of english, interpret the statement in question as a nasty racial slur against blacks. Do blacks get vicious when they think for themselves? As I stated in previous post, I am willing to give CavalierX the benefit of doubt, that is, CavalierX did not really mean what he wrote here. CavalierX probably made so typos or an unfortunate error in grammer in his haste to vent his hostility against me. N_obrain, why don't you read in between CavalierX's lines or read his mind, correct his typos or sentence structure, and tell us what you think he really meant here?

Do blacks get vicious when they think for themselves?

Posted by fiza June 5, 2007 2:01 PM

Were you born an ignorant ass, or did you take private lessons?

What N_Obrain said was that you (*LIBERALS*) are the ones that get vicious when blacks dare to think for themselves and turn there backs on Democrats.

This is just another of your long list of lies on this board.

Do you believe that it is a standard position for the right-wing to believe islam to be a death cult? Or do you believe that the right-wing is actually strategically positioning islam as a dealth cult? Please clarify.
Posted by Ipwnallah

Standard position vs. strategic position is irrelevant to my point. Positioning them as a death cult, whether you believe or not, makes the situation worse because it leads someone, logically, to think that there is no end to this until either Muslims or the non-Muslims are dead. There is a different way. Iraq is supposed to be that different way. There is a contradiction there if you believe Iraq can be a model, but at the same time believe there is no hope for Muslim enlightenment. You absolutely need Muslim enlightenment in order to achieve success in Iraq.

"He is talking about the way libs react to it. You need to read that again from the top. I am surprised you did put the entire quote in considering your lack of cred here. Might want to do that from now on."

Posted by ninerdog
June 5, 2007 2:07 PM |

Are you accusing me of misquoting, or quoting out of context? Putting in the entire quote from CavalierX does NOT change the meaning of the sentence in question. Is english your second language? Can you not read? I already gave CavalierX the benefit of the doubt here. I don't think that CavalierX, or any posters on this site believe that blacks are vicious when they think for themselves. Now y'all might think that of a liberal, whether black, white, yellow, brown, red, or whatever, but not blacks in general.

That doesn't sound to me as being anti war bias that is stating a fact. Now they may not have liked stating it but that is irrelevant. At least they had the stones to report it.

Lib, nobody said they never report anything good from Iraq. It's just that the reporting is astoundingly one sided on the negative, extremely rare (and always cautioned and ambivolent) with the positive, and much of the stuff that's being done is uncovered.

For example, did you know that for three straight years, each year, Iraq has had more electricity and water than the previous year? That stuff doesn't get covered. But Abu Ghraib gets 600 stories in a single year. Get me?

Posted by ninerdog
June 5, 2007 4:13 PM |

Sorry you can't read english! Do you need an interpreter or a translation of the sentence in question to another language? I can get one of the immigrants on my staff to translate to Spanish, or I can translate into German if either of these is your first language.
Adios, Du Eselchin!

Posted by fiza June 5, 2007 4:23 PM

When you can post without lying or manage to regain any credibility on this site, *THEN* and only then can you lecture anyone about anything.

Posted by Tracer
June 5, 2007 4:32 PM |

It was like a mini crash. Very strange.

Posted by fiza June 5, 2007 5:35 PM

What does Sanchez's sexual preference have to do with his being a reporter, oh tolerant one?

The only reason I brought up CavalierX's nasty sentence on blacks is because he called me an anti gay bigot in the same post. Why? For bringing out the "NOW FACTS" that Sanchez was a gay porno movie star, and that he is under investigation for lying to the Marine Corps? Sanchez MAY even have been in the porno business when he joined the Marines at the ripe young age of 33 on May, 17, 2003. I wonder if Sanchez told the recruiter about his backround, or if the recruiter found out about it in a backround check. Maybe not since Sanchez wisely used aliases. I can imagine what a lot of you and other conservatives, O'Reilly in particular, would be saying about Sanchez if he were some liberal, or even a conservative or neutral, who wrote some negative story about Iraq. I can imagine what a lot of the young Marines are saying about this guy now. I bet some enterprising young Marines have already dug up some of Sanchez's porno stuff, and it is only a matter of time before this crap is on You Tube, if not already. Mark my word, Sanchez will get some kind of honorable discharge from the Marines after this story and the investigation is over. I bet the Commadant of the Marine Corps is already furious about this disclosure.
Finally, just how did Sanchez get such a prized assignment as an embedded reporter with so little a backround in reporting or writing? I am surprised that John even put this controversial story on his website. Surly John knew about Sanchez's backround. Oh, well, the post brings up some interesting discussions, I guess.

Posted by fiza
June 5, 2007 5:35 PM |

I am stunned. You even admit to misquoting him to mislead someone. Man you cant stop can ya. What a joke. No wonder you’re a lib.

So you found one instance, shame on that reporter and on CNN, however this is not a widespread conspiracy.

Nobody ever said there was a conspiracy. A conspiracy implies organization and communication. Clearly we don’t believe the heads of various media organizations are meeting in dark, smoke-filled rooms to plot out a comprehensive propaganda campaign against America and President Bush. What we are saying, what we have always said, is that individual journalists tend to have their own individual agendas, that being to obscure the successes of this war and promote the failures. Just because we claim most journalists happen to act like dirty, rotten finks doesn’t mean we believe they get together and devise clandestine plans to promote their finkitude.

Are you accusing me of misquoting, or quoting out of context? Putting in the entire quote from CavalierX does NOT change the meaning of the sentence in question. Is english your second language? Can you not read? I already gave CavalierX the benefit of the doubt here. I don't think that CavalierX, or any posters on this site believe that blacks are vicious when they think for themselves. Now y'all might think that of a liberal, whether black, white, yellow, brown, red, or whatever, but not blacks in general.

Fiza, I don’t know who you think you’re kidding here. Everyone but you can clearly see that CavalierX was talking about the animosity liberals show to blacks who dare to espouse any belief other than devout liberalism.

That is NOT what the sentence in question says.

That is PRECISELY what the sentence in question says. Let’s look at it again.

“Then you slimeballs get as vicious as when blacks dare to think for themselves.”

The subject of the sentence is “you slimeballs”. The predicate is “get as vicious”. “You slimeballs” are the ones who “get vicious”. The sentence is grammatically correct and everyone on Rightwingnews BUT YOU understood it.

Now I agree that if the sentence were modified a little, and was tagged on to the previous sentence, the sentence would have CavalierX's intended meaning. I already gave CavalierX the benefit of the doubt and and agreed that he made a mistake in the phrasing or made some typos. Now if I made a typo or a mistake in phrasing my thoughts, y'all would not give an inch.

Actually I think we would. We’d understand that, given your tragically stunted brainstem, we shouldn’t expect you to use proper grammar or think logically.

The only reason I brought up CavalierX's nasty sentence on blacks is because he called me an anti gay bigot in the same post.

Thank you for admitting that you were desperately grasping at straws by calling CavalierX a racist.

Why? For bringing out the "NOW FACTS" that Sanchez was a gay porno movie star, and that he is under investigation for lying to the Marine Corps? Sanchez MAY even have been in the porno business when he joined the Marines at the ripe young age of 33 on May, 17, 2003. I wonder if Sanchez told the recruiter about his backround, or if the recruiter found out about it in a backround check.

The recruiter wouldn’t have found out because it would have been ILLEGAL for him to ask.

Finally, just how did Sanchez get such a prized assignment as an embedded reporter with so little a backround in reporting or writing?

You really think people need expertise to be a journalist? Journalism is a throwaway major taken by people who don’t have the work ethic to succeed in any other profession. The only expertise you need in order to be a journalist is the ability to grip a pencil and move it in a regular pattern across a pad of paper to create letters, words, and sentences.

I am surprised that John even put this controversial story on his website. Surly John knew about Sanchez's backround.

Yes, he did know Sanchez’s background. He also knew that liberal bigots like you would latch on to his sexuality and ignore everything else he says.

"I am stunned. You even admit to misquoting him to mislead someone. Man you cant stop can ya. What a joke. No wonder you’re a lib."


Posted by ninerdog
June 5, 2007 5:56 PM |

I guess ya really can't read! How did I misquote someone by putting in quotes exactly what the poster (CavalierX) said. Do you even understand what the terms "a quotation" or "in quotes" means? To educate you, I put your post, and everyone elses I refer to (unless I forget) in quotes above. I wouldn't want to be accused of plagerism here now. I even acknowledged that CavalierX MUST have made a mistake, because I don't believe he, or anyone else on this site is as bigoted as the quote indicated, even though CavalierX called me a bigot. Now tell me how I am a bigot by pointing out Sanchez's now undisputed past. Geeze, maybe you like watching gay porno flicks, are insulted that I brought the porno stuff up, and feel that I am a bigot. I have nothing against those who enjoy porno flicks. Like Jefferson said, I don't care what my neighbor believes in as long as he doesn't harm me. The last sentence is not an exact quote, so no quote marks.
Verstehen Sie?
Adios and enjoy your porno flicks.

How did I misquote someone by putting in quotes exactly what the poster (CavalierX) said.

Right here:

"Now I agree that if the sentence were modified a little, and was tagged on to the previous sentence, the sentence would have CavalierX's intended meaning."

Posted by fiza
June 5, 2007 5:35 PM |

You admitted that you quoted CavalierX out of context. You even admitted that, had you quoted him in context, his meaning would have been clear.

re: CavalierX's statement and fiza's reaction.

One comment: Reasonable people can understand what CavalierX meant. But fiza is right that the way it is written grammatically says something very different and can come across as a racial slur. Let's face it, if any liberal had made the same honest grammatical mistake that CavalierX did, CavalierX would be one of the first to point this out with some snide comment about the racism of the person posting. Nevertheless, we would all do well simply to recognize that we know CavalierX did not mean what he wrote in the way that he wrote it; and we know that fiza is technically correct for pointing out that the grammatical mistake made by CavalierX conveys an unfortunate message than what CavalierX likely intended.

I love how liberals like Fiza follow me around. He's another jihadist without the guts to blow himself up.

Posted by mattsanchez
June 5, 2007 11:02 PM

Matt, throughout this thread, I have been impressed with your respectful and measured and thoughtful comments. Up to now, you haven't allowed yourself to descend into ad hominem cheap shot territory -- even when provoked. I can't really say that I blame you for doing so now, but it's still a bit disappointing; and it really is not worth it.

"The subject of the sentence is “you slimeballs”. The predicate is “get as vicious”. “You slimeballs” are the ones who “get vicious”. The sentence is grammatically correct and everyone on Rightwingnews BUT YOU understood it."

Posted by mightysamurai
June 5, 2007 6:58 PM |

Here is my last post on the sentence in question, though maybe not my last post on Cpl. Sanchez.
Mightysamurai you forgot that the sentence in question says "get AS vicious AS when blacks DARE to think for themselves". Maybe we should e-mail the whole quote, including the sentence in question to Senator Obama, Rev. Jessie Jackson, or Rev. Al Sharpton to see if they interpret the sentence as a racial slur. I am sure that all three are fairminded individuals who would give us an honest opinion.

I had to go waaaay up to find that post.

That’s not what you said. You said that conservatives claimed Baghdad was not out of control, despite the fact that numerous conservatives (myself included) repeatedly pointed out that most of the violence is concentrated in Baghdad.

Concentrated violence is not an admission that a change in strategy was needed. The only people that were stating a change in strategy was needed was liberals, with a very few conservatives.

We did this to illustrate the dishonesty of liberals who claimed the entire nation of Iraq was consumed in violence. You yourself were present for many of these arguments. Did you just forget or are you lying through your teeth?

We never claimed that. Liberals have said from the very beginning that Iraq was three parts with Baghdad in the middle and we were risking civil war by reconstructing Iraq. I was there. I know what was said.

And there is indeed insurgent and sectarian violence throughout Iraq. Greater Baghdad is the crossroads, but also where 1/4 of the people live.

I can whistle through my teeth, though.

As you know perfectly well, no one will deny that mistakes were made. Show me a war in which mistakes weren’t made.

We are talking about this war. Not WWII, not the War of 1812. And you said not fast enough . There were serious mistakes and failures in leadership. And there was no action taken to correct that until a defeat in elections.

As for “spin”, you can call it that if you want, but how does that make it untrue? Do you actually have some objective evidence that it is untrue or will you continue to use the argumentum ad hominem of calling me a spinmaster?

Spin is the deflection and distraction. It wasn't that the progress wasn't fast enough, it was because the plan wasn't working. It wasn't Rumsfeld made mistakes like other people. He failed.

Do my eyes deceive me or did D-Vega just claim that LA has been in the midst of a civil war for decades?

Yes. Again. So.Bloody.What.

I’m sure they would’ve said they were living in a warzone. But does that mean they actually were?

Yes! When you have to send your kid to school with a BP vest because they may get killed by highly motivated cold-blooded killing uniformed warring factions that's a warzone.

Words have specific meanings, D-Vega. You can call South Central LA a “warzone” if you want, but that does not make it so.

See above, for Pete's sake.

It's accurate to say civil war because that is the main issue of Iraq. Not foreign fighters or AQ. The issue is the sectarian, tribal and vengeance divide. Once that is resolved, they will push out the foreigners and AQ. As Colin Powell said I like to call it a civil war, because I like to face reality.

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. I never claimed Islam was a “death cult”. Those were your words, not mine.

Gimme a break. Do you challenge the notion within your ranks? Those who would place so much faith in Iraqis, but not most other muslims?

But as long as we’re on the subject, I’ll answer your question anyway. I have many feelings about the religion of Islam, several of them negative, but IMO “death cult” goes too far.

Well, then. We have made a breakthrough. It's so typical that none of your colleagues who feel different stepped up to the plate.

I’m sure I don’t care.

I didn't say you did. Remember, your indifference is why it's sad.

Posted by huckupchuck
June 6, 2007 1:04 AM

Actually, you are incorrect. More correctly, your are half correct in the first part, and half correct in the second.

What I believe Cav was trying to say was that the left gets as upset about gays being conservatives as when blacks dare to think for themselves. Therefore:

"Then you slimeballs get as vicious as when blacks dare to think for themselves." The 'as' isn't used as a simile, but as a comparative. Think "this is as cheap as that" or "she is as fast as he is".

The grammatical issue with Cav is negligible and not worth the debate.

What is disturbing is that Cav thinks that blacks are only thinking for themselves when they express a conservative viewpoint.

Posted by D-Vega
June 6, 2007 10:03 AM |


Yeah. That thinking for yourself crap is so much worse that keeping them in the ghetto vote buying crap your party has inflicted on them since the republicans freed them from the democrats.

Most of the military is amazingly non-political! They don't watch the news as much and you'll find sports get there interest more than O'Reilly.

That said, the American public is not at ALL getting a clear picture of what is going on here, largely because of the media slant.


www.matt-sanchez.com

Posted by mattsanchez
June 6, 2007 11:04 AM |



Matt.
I read a blog by a dentist in Bagdad http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
He talks a lot about just day to day stuff. He was talking about a battle that according to the AP we were in and lost 25 solders. His account is something very different. Do you find this is the norm. Would you call this slanted or just and out right lie?

What is disturbing is that Cav thinks that blacks are only thinking for themselves when they express a conservative viewpoint.

Posted by D-Vega
June 6, 2007 10:03 AM

That wasn't his point at all. His point was that when blacks express a conservative viewpoint, they are being led astray by whitey and denigrated by the left. Therefore, the left believes that any minority who agrees with conservatives are brainwashed (don't believe me? Listen to Kathy Griffin on the View, and how the audience applauds her as she says just that).

You really should cite what you're talking about if you're saying "I may not be speaking the truth".

FACT: I've gone on record and back up everything I said. On my blog, I even give the links to the NPR story where they erroneously claimed 20 plus deaths when it was just one.

FACT: There are only FIVE media embeds as of June 6th, 2007

FACT: I am in Fallujah

FACT: I witnessed the after-effects of this event

FACT: NPR is NOT here.


Ninerdog, stick to the program and prove me wrong.

D-Vega: Why do you think blacks are conditioned not to think for themselves? You ever think maybe most blacks do think for themselves and still vote Democratic? Why is it that conservative blacks are the only ones who are thinking for themselves, in your mind?

Are you kidding D-Vega? Blacks are by far the population with the largest opposition to gay marriage, the biggest proponents and likely users of a school voucher system, the ones that are suffering the most from socialist policies ranging from failing public schools to government handouts that encourage making babies out of wedlock and remaining in poverty, and constantly attacked, viciously, if they choose not to buy the victim hood mentality sold to them by the left. Please explain to me how that means they could be free thinking to side with the party that misrepresent and ignores all their needs, other than the fact they are constantly told by democrats that all conservatives/republicans are closet KKKers that would immediately return to the days of lynching & cross burning?

Any black that was able to look past the fear mongering by the democrats would immediately realize that the democratic party is hostile to them, and while depending on their votes to keep power, never serves their true needs with anything with some meaningless shows that continue to allow them to claim the other side is a bunch of racists that would frog march all blacks back into slavery at the first chance. There is a reason that the quote "Do not stray from the democratic plantation or else" rings so true and it isn't a stretch to see that blacks are yet again enslaved by the democrats.

Posted by mattsanchez
June 6, 2007 12:49 PM |

Never said ya did not. I did say that your reporting is slanted. Every reporter is slanted. You know this. What I meant by my comments were this. If you give us on the ground reporting. And I use that to temper the libs and I see some correlation between the 2. I.e. the Ap story about the army in a firefight losing 25. With the eyewitness account that the army was not involved until it was mop up time and did not lose 25. Using one story to look at the other gives me an idea of the truth. Now if the army showes they did lose 25 in a fight on that day I would have a even better view. I would never say you are not what ya say you are. Way to much out there that says you are.

That wasn't his point at all. His point was that when blacks express a conservative viewpoint, they are being led astray by whitey and denigrated by the left. Therefore, the left believes that any minority who agrees with conservatives are brainwashed (don't believe me? Listen to Kathy Griffin on the View, and how the audience applauds her as she says just that).

Posted by jasamc
June 6, 2007 11:24 AM

First, your interpretation of what CavalierX meant makes even better sense to me. Thanks for clarifying that. The fact is still that his grammar is faulty because of the ambiguity in the structure. Because of that ambiguity, CavalierX should have expressed himself more clearly by using the language you used.

Second, related to your reply to D-Vega above, you are not correct. CavalierX did not specify blacks expressing a conservative viewpoint. He said when blacks think for themselves. You are the one making the connection between CavalierX's connection between blacks thinking for themselves and expressing a conservative viewpoint. If your interpretation of CavalierX's meaning is correct, then you have proved D-Vega's point: CavalierX, when he says "blacks thinking for themselves," means expressing a conservative viewpoint. They are one and the same. In other words, your interpretation does not allow for the possibility that having a liberal viewpoint is consistent with blacks thinking for themselves. I think D-Vega is correct and that, regardless of the soundness of the grammar, there is a patronizing of blacks in CavalierX's comment that presupposes that blacks who think for themselves must always be in opposition to liberals when they do so. It labels self-thinking blacks as conservatives and dismisses blacks who identify as liberals as, by definition, un-self-thinking (i.e. dupes).

Vietnam was before my time.

No reporter goes anywhere without the military. The military is extremely accomodating with "embedding" a reporter with a unit.

The problem is:

1. It is time consuming and reporters including Fox are in and out in two to three days.

2. The reporters are projecting their fraught emotions onto the conflict rather than reporting what is there.

3. Reporters will believe anything a jihadist website says, but will take military reports as propaganda. Often, the stringers report higher numbers because they're involved with the actual attack.

4. The media wants sensationalism and 22 deaths sounds better than 1. Who's going to verify it?

Posted by huckupchuck
June 6, 2007 2:38 PM

Incorrect on the second part. Cav wasn't saying that liberal blacks can't think for themselves. Notice the word "dare" in his post. He would hardly put that in there if he was speaking as a conservative would - he is using it as if it was a liberal speaking "How dare they think for themselves?"

That being said, he did shift POV in midsentence, which is jarring, but not incorrect.

Mightysamurai you forgot that the sentence in question says "get AS vicious AS when blacks DARE to think for themselves".

Actually I quoted it several times in my post. Perhaps this time you could take a second to actually read it.

Maybe we should e-mail the whole quote, including the sentence in question to Senator Obama, Rev. Jessie Jackson, or Rev. Al Sharpton to see if they interpret the sentence as a racial slur.

Sharpton will get offended at anything if he thinks he can make some money off of it. As for Jackson, do you really want someone who refers to Jews as “hymies” and NYC as “Hymietown” judging what is and is not a racial slur?

I am sure that all three are fairminded individuals who would give us an honest opinion.

The funny thing is, I get the feeling you really believe that.

No matter how many reporters have died, I assure you the troops have taken greater losses.

That’s not what you said. You said that conservatives claimed Baghdad was not out of control, despite the fact that numerous conservatives (myself included) repeatedly pointed out that most of the violence is concentrated in Baghdad.

Concentrated violence is not an admission that a change in strategy was needed.

I think what we have here is a fundamental misunderstanding. Here's what happened:

I posted a link showing tons of illegal aliens brandishing “reconquista” signs during a protest. You responded with this:

More scare-pics? Selectively culled from the hundreds of thousands of people waving American flags? I thought you would have something better.

I responded by pointing out that you have no problem with the MSM selectively reporting bad news out of Iraq and calling it a “civil war”, and therefore you should have no problem with me selectively reporting on anti-American illegal aliens. You responded:

That's exactly what you were saying before The Surge, that Baghdad was not out of control and needed a change.

This seemed to be a bit of a non-sequitur but I took it to mean that you were accusing me of saying Baghdad was completely under control. I pointed out that I never said any such thing, and you responded thusly:

You don't remember stay the course ? Are you saying you are separating yourself from what the Reps and the Pres had been telling us up until Nov. '06?

This statement, this statement right here, is not your original argument. You argued that conservatives were saying Baghdad was under control, which no conservative has ever said. In fact, conservatives have been saying just the opposite, that Baghdad is in fact where most of the violence is concentrated. Now you respond that “concentrated violence is not an admission that a change in strategy was needed” to which I now respond, no frikkin’ duh!

Nobody ever said a change in strategy was “needed”. IMO, we could have fixed Iraq without a troop surge. It just would have taken longer. And seeing as liberals apparently have the attention span of a fruit fly (honestly, how distractible do you have to be to consider a ~5 year war to be a long time?), it was a politically good decision. Sending more troops wasn’t going to hurt anything and it would probably help push the violence down a little more. Plus it turned all those “we should have had more boots on the ground” liberals into raging hypocrites when they spun 180 degrees in the opposite direction and decided that more boots on the ground was a bad idea.

We did this to illustrate the dishonesty of liberals who claimed the entire nation of Iraq was consumed in violence. You yourself were present for many of these arguments. Did you just forget or are you lying through your teeth?

We never claimed that.

Bullcrap. Plenty of liberals claimed that and plenty of liberals still claim that.

Liberals have said from the very beginning that Iraq was three parts with Baghdad in the middle and we were risking civil war by reconstructing Iraq. I was there. I know what was said.

Once again, not addressing the issue at hand.

And there is indeed insurgent and sectarian violence throughout Iraq.

Which, as you will recall, neither I nor any other conservative has ever disputed.

The point we have been making for what feels like forever now, the point which you seem determined to obscure and misstate, is that most of the violence is concentrated in Baghdad, while the rest of the country is RELATIVELY safer.

As you know perfectly well, no one will deny that mistakes were made. Show me a war in which mistakes weren’t made.

We are talking about this war. Not WWII, not the War of 1812. And you said not fast enough . There were serious mistakes and failures in leadership. And there was no action taken to correct that until a defeat in elections.

How exactly does that prove a “serious” mistake? I could just as easily say that President Bush only proposed the surge as a political maneuver. In fact, I did say that.

We didn’t “need” a troop surge. It’s a nice thing to have and it might make things a little bit easier, but that’s not to say we couldn’t have gotten the job done without it.

As for “spin”, you can call it that if you want, but how does that make it untrue? Do you actually have some objective evidence that it is untrue or will you continue to use the argumentum ad hominem of calling me a spinmaster?

Spin is the deflection and distraction. It wasn't that the progress wasn't fast enough, it was because the plan wasn't working. It wasn't Rumsfeld made mistakes like other people. He failed.

And what evidence do you have that the plan “wasn’t working”? Were our troops being killed at a greater ratio than the terrorists were? Was the violence escalating more than it should have? Were the terrorists gaining more territories?

Where. Is. Your. Evidence?

Do my eyes deceive me or did D-Vega just claim that LA has been in the midst of a civil war for decades?

Yes. Again. So.Bloody.What.

So what? Are you seriously telling me that you think LA is in the midst of an all-out civil war? Just because they have gang violence?

Tell me D-Vega, is it a “civil war” when two neighbors are having a feud with one another? What about a bar fight? Is that a “civil war” too? Just what is the Official D-Vega Threshold of Violence used to qualify a conflict as a civil war?

I’m sure they would’ve said they were living in a warzone. But does that mean they actually were?

Yes! When you have to send your kid to school with a BP vest because they may get killed by highly motivated cold-blooded killing uniformed warring factions that's a warzone.

For many years after the American Civil War, blacks in the South avoided certain areas of town, lest they be assaulted or even killed by racist whites. It was also common for white people to avoid other areas of town (unless they were in a group), lest they be attacked by black gangs in retribution for the latest lynching or church burning.

By your logic, the American Civil War continued well into the 20th century.

Words have specific meanings, D-Vega. You can call South Central LA a “warzone” if you want, but that does not make it so.

See above, for Pete's sake.

It's accurate to say civil war because that is the main issue of Iraq. Not foreign fighters or AQ. The issue is the sectarian, tribal and vengeance divide. Once that is resolved, they will push out the foreigners and AQ. As Colin Powell said I like to call it a civil war, because I like to face reality.

You just keep telling yourself that.

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. I never claimed Islam was a “death cult”. Those were your words, not mine.

Gimme a break. Do you challenge the notion within your ranks? Those who would place so much faith in Iraqis, but not most other muslims?

Do you challenge every instance of race-baiting from within your ranks?

But as long as we’re on the subject, I’ll answer your question anyway. I have many feelings about the religion of Islam, several of them negative, but IMO “death cult” goes too far.

Well, then. We have made a breakthrough. It's so typical that none of your colleagues who feel different stepped up to the plate.

There’s a reason for that. Every time we step up and say, “calling Islam a death cult seems a little harsh” another Muslim blows himself up in an Israeli restaurant. Or stones a Muslim woman to death because she was raped. Or cuts off the head of an innocent civilian. Or sets a woman on fire because she wouldn’t go along with an arranged marriage. Because of this, people like me find it extremely difficult to argue against the position that Muslims worship death.

If people get offended when Islam is referred to as a “death cult” then perhaps Muslims should be taking more steps to condemn atrocities like those I’ve listed above. Yet nary a peep is ever heard from them.

So allow me to elaborate on my point. IMO, Islam does not qualify as a “death cult”. But only by a hair.

No matter how many reporters have died, I assure you the troops have taken greater losses.

No matter how many reporters have died, I assure you the troops have taken greater losses.

No matter how many reporters have died, I assure you the troops have taken greater losses.

No matter how many reporters have died, I assure you the troops have taken greater losses.

Whether he's pretending to be a liberal or not, he is still conveying the notion that blacks thinking for themselves equals blacks not being liberal.

It would be a lot harder for him to say things like that were it not for the fact that every time a black person DARES to defy the liberal party line, he's suddenly a "race traitor" or an "uncle tom" who deserves to be pelted with oreos. If you want us to stop implying that the only blacks that think for themselves are the conservatives, perhaps you'd best look inward rather than outward.

Jesus, samurai. We have to find out a way to continue threads without them growing exponentially. I am trying to find a way to answer without taking a half hour.

This statement, this statement right here, is not your original argument. You argued that conservatives were saying Baghdad was under control, which no conservative has ever said.

I said was not out of control and needed a change. Conservatives, in general, were claiming the plan was the best one possible, that is, until the new plan, and the new plan after that. And then the elections, which cancelled Rumsfeld.

Nobody ever said a change in strategy was “needed”.

The President said a new plan which addressed mistakes . That's a needed change.

IMO, we could have fixed Iraq without a troop surge. It just would have taken longer. And seeing as liberals apparently have the attention span of a fruit fly (honestly, how distractible do you have to be to consider a ~5 year war to be a long time?), it was a politically good decision. Sending more troops wasn’t going to hurt anything and it would probably help push the violence down a little more. Plus it turned all those “we should have had more boots on the ground” liberals into raging hypocrites when they spun 180 degrees in the opposite direction and decided that more boots on the ground was a bad idea.

The new plan is not just more troops. It's supposed to be a new counter-insurgency. Mistakes corrected.

Bullcrap. Plenty of liberals claimed that and plenty of liberals still claim that.

Again. Who said entire nation?

And there is indeed insurgent and sectarian violence throughout Iraq.

Which, as you will recall, neither I nor any other conservative has ever disputed.

So it is throughout , but not entire ?

The point we have been making for what feels like forever now, the point which you seem determined to obscure and misstate, is that most of the violence is concentrated in Baghdad, while the rest of the country is RELATIVELY safer.

Safer than Baghdad is not that difficult.

How exactly does that prove a “serious” mistake? I could just as easily say that President Bush only proposed the surge as a political maneuver. In fact, I did say that.

Then why did he say new plan and mistakes ?

Where. Is. Your. Evidence?

The President himself.

Tell me D-Vega, is it a “civil war” when two neighbors are having a feud with one another?

Can be. Sometimes neighbors can have hundreds or even thousands of men.

What about a bar fight?

Usually a single instance. It's not like being beheaded in an alley.

Just what is the Official D-Vega Threshold of Violence used to qualify a conflict as a civil war?

I think I explained that.

By your logic, the American Civil War continued well into the 20th century.

I'm sure a lot of people felt it did. Ask the lynchees.

So allow me to elaborate on my point. IMO, Islam does not qualify as a “death cult”. But only by a hair.

Okay. Then we are in some agreement. Fine.

Again Matt, I ask you why you criticize the reporters for staying in the safety of the green zone and relying on "stringers" for stories. Go to this link for a great, but very long article on the state of news reporting in Iraq and why the correspondents are forced to rely on surrogates. You call em "stringers".

http://www.tomdispatch.com/pos...der_siege_in_baghdad

You claim that reporters stay in the safety of the "green zone". According to the article in the link, most of the reporters and news bureaus, including Fox, BBC, ABC, the Washington Post, and others, are housed in heavily guarded hotels and/or old villas outside of the green zone. Here is an excerpt from the article on the green zone and embedded reporting:

"The Green Zone

Sooner or later, anyone involved with the Americans must go to the so-called "Green Zone." Since it is so dangerous and difficult for Westerners to circulate in the everyday world of Baghdad, the Green Zone is one of the very few places to which a journalist can go to actually "report" a story. The alternative is to become embedded in the U.S. military. That Western journalists now find being embedded a kind of liberation from imprisonment in their bureaus is something of an irony, especially in view of the debate three years ago whether embedded reporters were accepting conditions that restricted their freedom to describe the war. Now they readily accept these limitations, because working as a "unilateral" has become practically impossible. At least with the military they see the killing in the streets at first hand.

The Green Zone is a 4.5-square-mile compound in the middle of Baghdad surrounded by an eight-mile-long, Christo-like running fence of blast walls. Someone dubbed it "the largest gated community in the world." The easy way to enter it is to "chopper in" to the zone's helicopter pad -- code-name "Washington" -- from Baghdad International Airport or one of the many other U.S. military bases that now form a growing American archipelago throughout Iraq. Indeed, all day and night choppers carrying military brass, diplomats, security specialists, contractors, and VIP civilians rattle a few hundred feet over Baghdad.

Reporters seeking access to the Green Zone must drive there and then negotiate passage through a heavily fortified access gate. Since these have been magnets for suicide bombers, they are ringed by armored vehicles, guard towers, and squads of heavily armed troops. If a visitor does not have the requisite US military- issued special pass for his vehicle, he or she must get dropped off at a special place outside a gate in a maze of blast walls, rubble, razor wire, and armaments. But cars dare not linger for more than a brief moment, lest soldiers presume that your vehicle is that of a bomber and open fire.

Once disembarked, the visitor walks across a dangerous no man's land to the outermost checkpoint. As cars whiz by and as you thread your way through corridors of blast walls, razor wire, and chessboard-like configurations of metal mesh bins filled with dirt and sand as blast barriers, you feel utterly exposed. There have, in fact, been many attacks on these gates. In December 2004, for example, a car loaded with explosives blew up at Harithiya Gate, killing seven people and wounding nineteen. A Web-published message purporting to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi triumphantly proclaimed: "On this blessed day, one of the lions of the martyrdom-seeking brigade struck a gathering of apostates and Americans in the Green Zone."

At the gate itself, you are greeted by signs in English and Arabic: "Do Not Enter or You Will be Shot," "Stop Here and Wait," or "No Cell Phone Use at Check Point." (The fear, of course, is that an insurgent with a cell phone will detonate a bomb by remote control.)

And then, you must begin navigating numerous checkpoints manned by guards who check IDs again and again, pass you through metal detectors and scanning machines, introduce you to bomb-sniffing dogs, and give you pat-down searches. Their object is to make certain that no terrorist breaches these walls, as happened in October 2004 when suicide bombers blew themselves up inside the Green Zone Café, killing several contractors, and reminding everyone that even the seemingly secure barriers dividing the Green Zone from the rest of Baghdad could be breached".

Here is the author's first impression of the green zone:

"When one first lands "inside the wire," as the world inside the Green Zone is known, one has the feeling of having gained access to some large resort in which soldiers have been turned into staff. Walking among the trailers, modular offices, generators, shipping containers (filled with thousands of items of equipment), PXs, fast food outlets, swimming pools and other recreational facilities, and seemingly inexhaustible supplies of American soft drinks, even the sight of the former palaces and buildings of Saddam Hussein and rows of date palms is not enough to jolt one back into Iraq."

After the reporter gets in to the green zone, here is where and why he or she goes, according to the article:

"It is here also that the Combined Press Information Center, known as CPIC, is located and where it holds its Thursday press briefings, which remind some veterans of the surreal "Five o'clock Follies" held each day at 5:00 PM in the windowless JUSPAO (Joint US Public Affairs Office) theater in Saigon. There, an earlier generation of "press information officers" gave journalists briefings, complete with four-color overlay charts tabulating "body counts" "targets hit," "structures destroyed," and "villages pacified" in a war that seemed to be getting statistically won, even as it was actually being lost.

It is to CPIC that arriving journalists must go to be photographed, finger-printed, and accredited. Indeed, without the official CPIC plastic badge, it is virtually impossible for a reporter to survive in the parallel universe of American installations that, with few exceptions, provide the country's only working systems of transport, food delivery, overnight quarters, communications, and emergency medical care."

Y'all should read the article. Matt, if you stay in Iraq, you will be reporting just as the article describes, and you will be going to the green zone for those briefings, but not quartered there. Tell us Matt, is the article at the link a good description of journalism in Baghdad?

My problem isn't "Seeking the safety of the Green Zone" I'm sitting in Camp Fallujah which is well guarded.

My problem is:

1. Outsourcing the reporting to sources that may be jihadist or propagandistic

2. The foregone conclusions. Questions like "How broken is the Army?" Instead of making a case with stats etc...

3. The "activist" journalism, which may or may not be conscious.

4. The elitist arrogance of the reporters who feel they have to act upon events rather than reporting limiting their jobs to reporting those events.

5. The "if it bleeds it leads" mindset that creates controversy as a cheap technique for getting their readers to shake their heads in unison. Case in point, the Washington Post article that insinuated food was running out in the Green Zone.

Again Matt, I ask you why you criticize the reporters for staying in the safety of the green zone and relying on "stringers" for stories. Go to this link for a great, but very long article on the state of news reporting in Iraq and why the correspondents are forced to rely on surrogates. You call em "stringers".

Posted by fiza
June 7, 2007 12:25 AM |

Relying on a stringer for the news is like relying on fiza to get it right. Can you say terrorist. (not calling fiza that) disinformation. The reporters must know this. I can not believe they are that big of a mental midgets. Of course most of them are libs and anything bad for the US is good for them. They talk about 180 or so dead reporters and they still do not see that the terrorists will kill them just the same as they will kill an 11 year old girl with a vest bomb. Matt pleases keep your head down and your eyes open. Keep telling us what ya see. I for one will keep reading your stuff.

Posted by fiza
June 7, 2007 10:32 AM |

Not my job to verify what spews from your lazy lib mouth. Prof please.

Check out this cartoon taken from this article in Day to Day.

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2007/06/07/#a004161

"Why should we believe anything the press puts out. Most of them have been proven to lie."

Posted by ninerdog
June 7, 2007 10:45 AM |

You have a warped mind! Not much I can say to a person who thinks like you!

The story about the Korean war vet who was a reporter in Vietnam appeared in a documentary about the Vietnam war on the history channel. Those damm liars on those documentaries sucked me right in. No more history channel and phoney documentaries for me! Thanks for straigntening me out, niner!

Gotta go away for a couple of days. See Ya!

Again, were you in NAM? Did you get your combat infantryman's badge? If so, congratulations! I didn't.

This statement, this statement right here, is not your original argument. You argued that conservatives were saying Baghdad was under control, which no conservative has ever said.

I said was not out of control and needed a change.

Call me crazy, but I would think "not out of control" and "under control" are the same thing.

Conservatives, in general, were claiming the plan was the best one possible, that is, until the new plan, and the new plan after that. And then the elections, which cancelled Rumsfeld.

Correct. At the time it was being used, "stay the course" was the best plan. Then the circumstances changed and we needed a new plan.

Nobody ever said a change in strategy was “needed”.

The President said a new plan which addressed mistakes . That's a needed change.

No it isn't. It's a preferred change. You don't need to make a change to accomodate every single mistake. Sometimes your original plan can handle it. If we changed our plan every time we made a mistake, we'd never get anything done.

IMO, we could have fixed Iraq without a troop surge. It just would have taken longer. And seeing as liberals apparently have the attention span of a fruit fly (honestly, how distractible do you have to be to consider a ~5 year war to be a long time?), it was a politically good decision. Sending more troops wasn’t going to hurt anything and it would probably help push the violence down a little more. Plus it turned all those “we should have had more boots on the ground” liberals into raging hypocrites when they spun 180 degrees in the opposite direction and decided that more boots on the ground was a bad idea.

The new plan is not just more troops.

I never said it was.

It's supposed to be a new counter-insurgency. Mistakes corrected.

Again, did we need to correct them or did we want to correct them? A "need" is something you cannot do without. A "want" is something you would like but you don't need.

Conservatives wanted the surge to happen because we believed it would be a good thing. We never said it needed to happen or that it was absolutely essential to the war effort.

Bullcrap. Plenty of liberals claimed that and plenty of liberals still claim that.

Again. Who said entire nation?

Nobody said that. Here are my specific words again:

We did this to illustrate the dishonesty of liberals who claimed the entire nation of Iraq was consumed in violence.

Were you one of the liberals that claimed Iraq was totally consumed in violence? No? Then I was not talking about you, was I?

And there is indeed insurgent and sectarian violence throughout Iraq.

Which, as you will recall, neither I nor any other conservative has ever disputed.

So it is throughout , but not entire ?

Uh, yeah. "Throughout" is not necessarily the same as "entire". If you have cancer in your brain, lungs, esophagus, mouth, liver, stomach, and intestines, but not in your pancreas, would it be incorrect to say you have cancer "throughout" your body?

The point we have been making for what feels like forever now, the point which you seem determined to obscure and misstate, is that most of the violence is concentrated in Baghdad, while the rest of the country is RELATIVELY safer.

Safer than Baghdad is not that difficult.

How exactly does that prove a “serious” mistake? I could just as easily say that President Bush only proposed the surge as a political maneuver. In fact, I did say that.

Then why did he say new plan and mistakes ?

Didn't I just say it was a political maneuver?

Where. Is. Your. Evidence?

The President himself.

Oh really? Tell me, when did the President say there had been serious mistakes? Not just "mistakes" but serious ones.

Tell me D-Vega, is it a “civil war” when two neighbors are having a feud with one another?

Can be. Sometimes neighbors can have hundreds or even thousands of men.

So it's the number of people involved that makes a conflict a civil war? Just what is that number exactly? Is it four or more households on each side?

What about a bar fight?

Usually a single instance. It's not like being beheaded in an alley.

You're right, it's more like being beaten to death with a baseball bat. Which is less violent for some reason...

Just what is the Official D-Vega Threshold of Violence used to qualify a conflict as a civil war?

I think I explained that.

Actually you didn't. You explained your definition of a "warzone" but you did not explain how "warzone"="civil war".

By your logic, the American Civil War continued well into the 20th century.

I'm sure a lot of people felt it did. Ask the lynchees.

Precisely my point. Just because some people think a conflict is a "civil war" does not automatically make it so.

Call me crazy, but I would think "not out of control" and "under control" are the same thing.

They are. The difference lies in needed a change. The position was that Baghdad was not under total control, but progress was being made according to the current plan. Then, the current plan was not working and we needed a new plan. You have to look at my entire statement.

Correct. At the time it was being used, "stay the course" was the best plan. Then the circumstances changed and we needed a new plan.

Yes, the Republicans lost an election. Glad we are agreement. The facts on the ground meant little.

No it isn't. It's a preferred change. You don't need to make a change to accomodate every single mistake. Sometimes your original plan can handle it. If we changed our plan every time we made a mistake, we'd never get anything done.

Are you serious? The President didn’t position this as some sort of minor adjustment that could happen or not. That it didn’t matter. This was a big deal. A new counter-insurgency strategy. Downplaying it is disingenuous.

It's supposed to be a new counter-insurgency. Mistakes corrected.

Again, did we need to correct them or did we want to correct them? A "need" is something you cannot do without. A "want" is something you would like but you don't need.

We needed to correct them. You would not replace your key military leaders on a whim. This is something that was badly needed.

Conservatives wanted the surge to happen because we believed it would be a good thing. We never said it needed to happen or that it was absolutely essential to the war effort.

On the contrary, I remember conservatives saying that this was needed. Especially the changes to the ROE. That changing the ROE was essential and was needed.

We did this to illustrate the dishonesty of liberals who claimed the entire nation of Iraq was consumed in violence.

Again. You are saying entire nation consumed in violence. Who said entire nation?

Uh, yeah. "Throughout" is not necessarily the same as "entire". If you have cancer in your brain, lungs, esophagus, mouth, liver, stomach, and intestines, but not in your pancreas, would it be incorrect to say you have cancer "throughout" your body?

Yes, there is sectarian violence throughout Iraq. That contributes to the classification of Iraq being in the midst of a multi-faceted civil war.

Oh really? Tell me, when did the President say there had been serious mistakes? Not just "mistakes" but serious ones.

Mistakes that make you change your SoD, the commander in Iraq & the ROE during a war & reconstruction? Are there any other kinds than serious ones?

So it's the number of people involved that makes a conflict a civil war? Just what is that number exactly? Is it four or more households on each side?

No. But it can be.

You're right, it's more like being beaten to death with a baseball bat. Which is less violent for some reason...

And not a civil war.

Actually you didn't. You explained your definition of a "warzone" but you did not explain how "warzone"="civil war".

Ai yai yai. Again, speaking on Iraq;

It's accurate to say civil war because that is the main issue of Iraq. Not foreign fighters or AQ. The issue is the sectarian, tribal and vengeance divide. Once that is resolved, they will push out the foreigners and AQ. As Colin Powell said I like to call it a civil war, because I like to face reality.

Again, with regards to L.A.:

Yes. Again. So.Bloody.What. Yes, a civil warzone in an American city.

Precisely my point. Just because some people think a conflict is a "civil war" does not automatically make it so.

Oh, you were referring to one’s opinion? The original argument is whether the media were being honest or not in classifying Iraq being in the midst of civil war. There is enough information there to factually support that. You may think it is not. But you cannot argue there is no or even little evidence of that.