What's This Knife Doing In My Back?

I don't usually just point people at other blogs without something of my own to say, but Josh "TPM" Marshall slam-dunks this one:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/sept0304.html#092303154pm

He says:

It's come to this. A US Congressman, Jim Marshall, Democrat from Georgia's 3rd District, says media bias is responsible for US troop deaths in Iraq.

From a column he penned the Atlanta Journal Constitution earlier this month, some of the highlights: "I found myself wondering whether the news media were somehow complicit in [Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg's] death ... We may need a few credible Baghdad Bobs to undo the harm done by our media. I'm afraid it is killing our troops."

It really doesn't get much lower than that.

In fact, it does get worse. The "good" Congressman claims that the media isn't covering good news now, and that during the "hot" part of the war, "embedded journalists reported the good, the bad and the ugly." He also says, after hearing from a soldier with a positive attitude, "No one I spoke with said anything different." Well, duh. How many soldiers are going to ask for a court-martial by telling a Congresscritter what they really think of a war being increasingly screwed up? I guess the rest of us are just hallucinating the increasing sound of "this is bull" shots from the guys on the ground.

In what little defense I can muster for Congressman Marshall, he's a Vietnam veteran, so he sees the coverage through that bias. Nevertheless, in an age of Faux News and round-the-clock wingnut radio, how can he possibly make this claim with any seriousness?

(/) Roland X
Betrayal Knows No Party