The Empire Strikes Back

On CNN's Reliable Sources Howard Kurtz invited some reporters Iraq to answer the complaints of bias in covering the war, all saying what you expected them to say, this whole "witch hunt" is a plot by the White House to shift attention from the war itself. They just don't get it. They talk all the time about context, but they don't know what it really means.

If we were Iraqis and all we knew of the U.S. was its occasional riots, videos of copy beating a suspect, horrible crime scenes like yesterday's in Seattle, what would we conclude about the lives of ordinary Americans? Americans have no concept of what life is like for ordinary Iraqis. We can't go outside and see the normal sites and sounds of the cities and towns. Unless we know better, we assume that everything reported is representative of the whole country. Yet all these reporters go to the scenes of attacks and return and file their stories without harm. There are a few exceptions, but the countryside is not like a war zone most of the time. Their responses are so sneering and condescending it makes you think they must think we're all ignorant rubes to challenge them so.