No more Iraq news, I guess
The following is Hugh Hewitt's Townhall commentary email entitled "Good News is No News":
The news from Iraq is so good that, suddenly, it is hardly news at all. For two years the mainstream media and Democrats in Congress could not let a day go by without pronouncing defeat in Iraq. Now that the surge has dramatically lowered American, Coalition and, yes, even Iraqi casualties, the media has turned elsewhere for its lead stories.
The American Enterprise Institute's Fred Kagan, one of the architects of the policies behind the surge, urges Americans to keep the recent dramatic successes against al Qaeda in Iraq in mind as prophets of doom switch their dark glasses to the prospect of out-of-control Shia militias and long-term Iranian domination in Iraq. Kagan writes that "those who now proclaim the hopelessness of future efforts also ridiculed the possibility of the success we have achieved."
Kagan is right. General Petraeus and his team have earned a great deal of deference by reclaiming the momentum and restoring stability in Iraq. We should be sure to trust them in the months ahead--not their partisan critics.
I should add my theory that the good news from Iraq is the major reason for the return of the ol' standby of the BDS-ridden media: allegations of torture and prisoner-abuse.
