Why wont the press report the wonderful progress in Iraq?

There are those, mostly Bush sycophants, who complaining that the press only reports negative stories out of Iraq. This complaint argues that there are many good things happening, nay many many good things happening that never get reported because . . . well take your choice: The so called liberal media (SCLM); the anti-Bush bias; the blame/hate America mentality.

Recognizing that "news" is not fact, it is the reporters slant, and that there may well be good things going on in Iraq, I am still not interested in hearing about such "success" stories. It detracts from the immense horror. I suggest that is like asking me to notice the pretty little flowers pushing there way up through the ground fertile with the putrid rot of the corpses they are growing from. How tender. Like asking me to be impressed with the new curtains in the bathroom; nevermind the house is burning down all around.

No, I am interested in the press, and every other media, portraying the mess in a way that discredits Bush, his neocon minions, and cynical policies in a way that future history records this period as a demented disgrace. Maybe from that we will learn something.

I reject those who want noticed the incidental and minute results of Bush's sick policy. I want the elephant in the room to continue to be exposed. Legions of new kindergarten classrooms are nice, but not worth one death, on either side. And incidental I do mean. Had Saddam died of a heart attack, there would not be one dime of US foreign aid given to Iraq. After all, he was a brutal dictator, no? Such is the skewed reasoning of those against whom Orwell warned.

a stray thought on doublespeak

I may come back to embellish this thought at some point, along the lines of anti-intellectualism in American politics, but for now:

In case no one has noticed, "political correctness" has beome another one of those terms the RW has appropriated for its own use, to beat up on anyone not conforming to their theology. It would be nice if the media would catch on to this fact and recognize that, once again, the RW has out Orwelled Orwell. We should not make the same mistake. In this day of Bush and the neo-cons,and as well as the standard right wing wackos, political correctness increasingly invokes exactly the opposite of its original content. The rap against political correctness was that control of discourse and the conventioanl shape of the political landscape was dictated by pointy headed liberals (often in universities), always a favorite to kick around. Is there even a question that this paradigm no longer is valid?