Crossposted at DKos

If Laura Bush had married George Wallace instaed of George Bush, she would have complained that the media wasn't reporting on the positive aspects of segregation -- you know, about how those marchers in Birmingham who got hosed down the street didn't have to take baths that night.

Positive stuff like that. Positive stuff like building Iraqi schools and such. That's what she said she wanted to see more of.

It is not encouraging coverage for sure. There’s no doubt about it. But I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren’t covered. And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what is happening unless they happened to have a loved one deployed there, is discouraging.

So, what do those vicious media leftists reporting from Iraq have to say for themselves -- you know, the ones who want America to lose?

Columbia Journalism Review asked a sample of Iraq correspondents where all the good news from Iraq has gone:

Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor:

Good news? My first inclination is to say, “What fucking good news?” The violence and criminality of Iraq has only grown in the three years that I’ve been here. And there is not an honest metric that shows anything but that. That’s the big story. If the Jets and the Sharks were ruling the streets of Manhattan after dark, that’s the big story, not whether or not the municipality painted a few schools. Now, we have covered in great length and detail, and I’m talking about the press in general, all sorts of stuff that’s been done, whether it’s been power plants that have been redone, water plants that have been rebuilt. Of course, after a while the Americans didn’t want you to go see stuff they’d rebuilt because if it gets publicized, it’s more likely to get blown up sooner. Reconstruction has failed because there is a war on. And I’m not aware of any single war in human history in which basic living conditions of citizens living in the war zone improved before the war ended.

Why, Dan, what a potty mouth for a writer from a paper that has the word Christian in its title! Go find a school being repainted, right now!

Anthony Shadid, Washington Post:

When I hear this term “good news” [that the press allegedly fails to report], I think of the Arab world I used to cover in 1995, official news agencies, writing about the accomplishments of President Mubarak. I mean, it was despicable. This was good news in their eyes. I just don’t understand the distinction [between “good” stories and “bad” ones]. I mean, what Iraq is today and what they envisioned it being before the invasion of 2003 — How else do you chronicle that except through the deterioration of the country? It’s not a success story, and to call it a success story is propagandistic at this point.

Hey, quit badmouthing our Egyptian allies there, Anthony. Go and write about that new water plant in Baghdad. Quick, before someone blows it up.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post:

You’ve got journalists saying to the embassy there, “So tell us about the reconstruction projects you’re doing, tell us about the great things you’re doing so we can write about it and show this side of the story.” You’ve got public information officers saying, “Sure, we’ll take you there, but you can’t say where it is, and you can’t name anybody, and you can’t take any pictures, because if we point out the location of this, it could be a target for the insurgency, and if we name people, they could be subject to retribution.” Is that really progress when you can’t go and report basic facts of something because they’re too worried it’s going to be attacked?

Ah, so all the good news is a big secret? Now I see. Gotta hide the good stuff from the bad guys. Check.

Andrew Lee Butters, Freelance Writer:

I think a good question is how accurate a picture of Iraq Americans actually want. When I came home to the United States in fall 2004, around the time of the elections, people would ask me about Iraq at every party or event. I remember being at a Republican election-night party in Delaware, because my uncle was running for governor of Delaware, and people just asked me about Iraq. They couldn’t understand and were just very surprised to hear me say that things weren’t actually going very well. Somehow they would see these explosions and just think that it’s okay when things just blew up all the time. Somehow — as these bombings keep going on — there was a flourishing civil society going on? A society that just ignores these things? Much responsibility is placed on the press, what they’re doing and what they’re not doing. But I think the American public shared a certain amount of responsibility by shutting its eyes.

Andrew, are you suggesting that a certain number of Republicans are out of touch? Maybe they got those ideas watching that TV network that starts with an F.

Dexter Filkins, The New York Times:

What has struck me about the criticism about us, about the press in this war, is, number one, how virulent it is, absolutely take-no-prisoners, the “you’re not an American and I hope you die” sort of criticism. But it’s being made by people who aren’t there and who claim some kind of superior knowledge even though they’re not there. I remember when I was in Fallujah, I was with a company of soldiers when the Marines invaded Fallujah to take it back from the insurgents in November 2004. We went into that city on foot. I was with those guys for eight days, and a quarter of the unit was killed or wounded, I mean it was an absolute bloodbath. But I was there, and on one or two occasions I was able to hook up my satellite phone and I downloaded some stuff, hoping to get some stuff from my office in New York. I remember there were people sending e-mails to me in the United States telling me that I was out of my mind about what I was seeing and that I was wrong. Maybe I was wrong, but I mean how would somebody in Minnesota who is sitting at their computer screen . . . but anyway, that’s the world that we live in.

Well, Dexter, what did you expect?!? Why didn't you report about the schools that we liberated in Fallujah? Huh?

Let's find some reporters who have written about all the new schools, shall we?

Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times:

They would spend ridiculous amounts of money on painting schools and, you know, hire some fancy contractor to paint the schools as opposed to giving some Iraqis the job. So there were a lot of complications with the reconstruction. Everyone was trying to make a buck or two off this thing — and it was wrong! It was wrong! It didn’t work! All these theories [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld had about this leaner, meaner military that subcontracts everything — it just didn’t work. It was a failure. You can say that objectively.

Oh, come now, Borzou. Rummy is the best defense secretary in the whole history of, like, the entire planet. Cheney just said so. Rummy sure did a heckuva job, didn't he?

Caroline Hawley, BBC

I’ll never forget going to a school that was supposedly rehabilitated. And there was the adviser of the Education Ministry and he was in tears because of the shoddy job that had been done. It was basically a paint job had been done in the school; it hadn’t really been renovated. The toilets didn’t work, and this was the school that we had been taken to for showcasing the reconstruction at the beginning of the school year. And it was clear that the contract to redo the school had passed through many hands, and a very cheap job had been done at the end.

Tsk, tsk, Caroline. Those were tears of joy that man was shedding. Obviously, you don't know good news when you see it!

Well, I can see now why our First Lady has some issues with the boys and girls of the Fourth Estate.

Every day it's another story about a suicide car bomb or a mass kidnapping of humanitarian workers or something else.

Why even today the evil New York Times is writing about how insurgents are cutting Baghdad off from electricity.

BAGHDAD, Dec. 18 — Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.

No, no, no! Bad NY Times!

What Laura wants is more good stuff, like this Newsweek story about how the economy in Iraq is booming.

It may sound unreal, given the daily images of carnage and chaos. But for a certain plucky breed of businessmen, there's good money to be made in Iraq. Consider Iraqna, the leading mobile-phone company. For sure, its quarterly reports seldom make for dull reading. Despite employees kidnapped, cell-phone towers bombed, storefronts shot up and a huge security budget—up to four guards for each employee—the company posted revenues of $333 million in 2005. This year, it's on track to take in $520 million.

That's right! That's what Laura wants! Stories about plucky Iraqis.

Even so, there's a vibrancy at the grass roots that is invisible in most international coverage of Iraq. Partly it's the trickle-down effect. However it's spent, whether on security or something else, money circulates. Nor are ordinary Iraqis themselves short on cash. After so many years of living under sanctions, with little to consume, many built up considerable nest eggs—which they are now spending. That's boosted economic activity, particularly in retail. Imported goods have grown increasingly affordable, thanks to the elimination of tariffs and trade barriers. Salaries have gone up more than 100 percent since the fall of Saddam, and income-tax cuts (from 45 percent to just 15 percent) have put more cash in Iraqi pockets. "The U.S. wanted to create the conditions in which small-scale private enterprise could blossom," says Jan Randolph, head of sovereign risk at Global Insight. "In a sense, they've succeeded."

Yep, nothing quite like a civil war to put money in the pockets of the little people. OK, so half the country is unemployed. Big deal! And so what if they don't have a functioning banking system. Who needs bankers anyway? And so what if all this economic blossoming is thanks to the billions we are pouring into the country every day. Let the grandkids pay for it!!!!

Just goes to show -- if those liberal media types trying to make sure America loses would just stay in the Green Zone and write glowing stuff from Iraqi quarterly reports instead of hanging out with Marines in Fallujah, we might win this war yet.