Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
The fact that the war was sold on sound bites like weapons of mass destruction, liberation, flowers at our feet, dead enders and mission accomplished may have something to do with it too.
Only to those who weren't paying attention and did not realize that:

- There was no WMD problem; absolutely no way Iraq was a threat in that arena.

- Liberation? Perhaps -- but war is never that simple, even my sixteen year old granddaughter knew that.

- Flowers at our feet -- never going to happen in any meaningful sense; if it did happen it would be fleeting and irrelevant.

- Dead enders are ALWAYS a problem (they were when we got there and they still are). Heck, they're a problem in this country today.

- Mission accomplished -- paying attention to what politicians of any stripe say is not terribly bright.

So, yeah, since the media struck out on all those, they got their feelings hurt and retaliated by being unhelpful. Not a problem. Nor does it address what I said which was: ""I do know that I have seen so little truly thoughtful analysis and comment on either Afghanistan or Iraq that I'm unsure how jingoism can develop other than as a dumb knee jerk reaction to sloppy reporting."" Point being that negative reporting or failing to accentuate the positive is not at all the same thing I said; those things are due, IMO, to a net lack of competence, not to bias or a sense of being taken.