KEEPING US MISINFORMED – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  I happen to think that self-punishment is an important part of building character, so I tuned in to CNN last night.

You know, I have no idea what those boys have in mind.  Their ratings are through the basement, with no improvement in sight, and they seem to have little idea how to fix things.  A few weeks ago they put Shirley Sherrod, Agriculture Department official, on Mount Rushmore.  Last week they did the same to the airline attendant who abandoned his passengers and slid down the chute.

Last night the leftist brigades at CNN heralded the fact that our last combat units are leaving Iraq. One CNN "journalist" breathlessly said, "We've waited seven and a half years for this moment," as if addressing parents on their daughter's wedding day.  We were informed endlessly that no WMD were found in Iraq.  We were never informed, not once, that WMD programs were indeed found in Iraq, and were ready to be restarted once the UN lifted sanctions.  Since sanctions were due to be lifted in 2003, th year we went in militarily, we can only imagine where Saddam Hussein would be in WMD development had we not acted.  No talk of that on CNN.

CNN tried to portray Iraq as either an embarrassment or a catastrophe, take your pick.  Fortunately, David Gergen provided some adult balance, but the whole tone of the reporting had that typical liberal sneer to it.  It was an echo of the past.  Many of these reporters were tutored by the Vietnam generation, which handed down the accepted "narrative" that Vietnam was a mistake and a disaster.  No, it was a disaster only when we pulled the plug on our South Vietnamese allies, but that part of the narrative gets left out.  If I closed my eyes last night, I was hearing the same clichés I heard from Vietnam reporters in the late sixties and early seventies. 

I did not watch all of the "reporting," but the fact that Iraq was saved from a sadistic madman and his equally sadistic sons got short shrift.  Iraq may not be in spectacular shape, and its government is still a mess, but it hasn't got a dagger pointed at anyone, and it isn't developing WMD. 

We will have a military presence in Iraq in the form of training and support units.  The story is not over.  We should refuse to accept the blabbering of liberal journalists who wanted that story to end last night.

August 19, 2010