Wednesday, October 26, 2005

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.

5 Comments:

At 5:40 PM, Blogger Justin said...

I don't think conservatives dispute that people still die, it's that conservatives dispute having an artificial milestone promoted as news over things like, oh I don't know, say 80% of the Iraqis ratifying a constitution.

 
At 11:01 PM, Blogger RJ said...

yeah, I'm with you chuck. I wish j. morgan would come out of hiding and give us one of those perspectives I never would've thought of in a million years.

 
At 8:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

With all due respect to jackscolon, 80% of Iraqis ratifying the particular constitution they ratified was also an artificial milestone. As charles said--implied, rather--we should grapple with the real issues.

 
At 1:36 PM, Blogger Justin said...

I disagree, having a constitution that is supported by the populace in a previously totalitarian country vs. not having one is a tangible difference, whereas 1,999 deaths compared with 2,000 is just a matter of arbitrarily drawing the line somewhere.

I'm willing to rest my case though. I could really care less about this, I just like arguing.

 
At 8:41 PM, Blogger Justin said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200510271008.asp

 

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