My wife told me the other day that the first thing I said after I saw the videos of the planes flying into the WTC was "It has to be bin Laden."

The reason I mention this is because I just saw Jay Rosen's latest. He quotes a speech by Tom Bettag at a dinner where he was given the Fred Friendly Award. Bettag is senior executive producer of Nightline and This Week with George Stephanopolous.

He said, as journalists seem to do a lot, that the media failed us before 9/11. I thought it was ironic, given the press's reactions to the Abu Ghraib story. All I've been reading in the papers is that the stain on America's honor is so bright and so deep that we should just slink away from Iraq, but fire Don Rumsfeld first. I have the distinct impression that they don't really feel that ashamed of that stain, since it really only attaches to Bush and the "Vulcans."
Nightline, you'll remember, took up extra time to observe the end of major combat operations in Iraq to read the names and show the photos of all the men and women who have been killed in the Quaqmire. Not as a political statement mind you, but as a reminder of the "costs of war." I'd have given them another hour if they had been interested in detailing the good things our troops have done in Iraq, like nabbing Saddam, building schools, getting the oil flowing again, repairing the power system, fixing roads, rounding up the criminals Saddam released when we deposed his regime, killing a lot of his Fedayeen and Ba'athists and giving their lives to free Iraq and build democracy there. But I guess that would have been too biassed.