The lugubrious game

Check out LGF for all sorts of links about the press's coverage of what I'll call the 2,000th serviceperson's Iraq-related death. I use that odd phrase because it's false that 2,000 soldiers have died fighting on the ground in Iraq.

This debate about the media's coverage of the 2,000th death, with liberals saying "grim milestone" and conservatives saying "irrelevant," is cute, because it obscures multiple more important issues: one, that (contra the liberals) the number of deaths has little to do with whether or not the war was justified; and two, that (contra the conservatives) American soldiers do continue to die on a daily basis. 67 American servicepeople have died THUS FAR in October--that makes October the 9th deadliest month in this 32-month war, and we have 6 more days to go.

We don't want to grapple with the real issues of Iraq--the intelligence failures, the dissent of top brass, the fact that our children are going to have to pay for this war, that we need to continue to support the troops that are fighting and pray that they succeed. (Read Slate's fascinating attack on something I posted about here.)

I would like to point out that the "MSM" is making a big deal out of #2,000 because...it's NEWS. Not because they're die-hard gay-loving universal health care having abortionist relativists. Because they need news, and they'll make news out of anything.