HuffPoster Paul Reickhoff doesn't buy the recent complaints about the media's lack of good news from Iraq.

"I believe that press coverage in Iraq is definitely too narrow. But too negative? I don't think so. If you are looking for good news stories in a war zone, you are looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. It is like looking for virgins at the Playboy mansion -- you might find a few, but they're certainly not the majority. If you want good news stories, go to Disneyland. Not Iraq."

Reickhoff shares an e-mail from a soldier in Iraq who is, shall we say, disillusioned:

"The bottom line is, the overwhelming majority of people live in fear. We can do NOTHING to help them. We don't have anywhere near the manpower, and our actions are too severely restricted. Good thing 2500 people died for this. What are the good news stories? I would love to hear them. Spare me the heart warming tales of a single family or school or neighborhood that was helped. Operation Iraqi Freedom is, at this point, an abject failure. This is the most dangerous place on earth and it's getting worse, not better."

Jonathan Chait is feeling, well, outgunned:

"I blame George W. Bush's election for many ills, and, to that list, I can now add the fact that I have been publicly shamed for not owning a gun. My unwilling confession took place a month ago, while I was being interviewed by the right-wing radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. He asked me whether I owned a gun and whether I had ever owned a gun (in what seemed to be consciously McCarthyite language). Later, he proceeded with a lengthier inquisition into whether I had friends or relatives in the military. He asked a version of this question some half-dozen times. ('Is there anyone that you want to bring up, like your aunt or your uncle, or the guy down the street?') I volunteered that my next-door neighbor and friend is a naval reservist, but this failed to mollify him. 'Do you know anyone who's been back and forth to Iraq and been deployed there?' he asked. Sadly, I was unable to produce any evidence for my defense. In the court of right-wing talk radio, I was convicted of being a blue-state elitist.

"This is a very odd cultural moment we find ourselves in, where there is a stigma attached to not owning a gun or not having friends shipped out to Iraq."

If you want to read the whole article, it's long but entertaining.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...41100587.html/