(Why is the only story out of Iraq each day a bombing that kills six, when there are more murders than that each night in a group of a half-dozen cities or so in the U.S.? Our enemies count on that. They want the drip, drip, drip of American blood, because they think we do not have the moral toughness to stand it.) ~Michael Novak

Except that that isn’t the only story out of Iraq each day.  This is nonsense.  In recent months, the stories usually include the dozens of Iraqis killed by bombs and the dozens more murdered by death squads and, then, to top it off comes the story about Americans killed by roadside bombs.  How many American cities can boast thousands murdered by death squads in one month?  I’m going to take a wild guess and say none.  Forget the drip-drip-drip of American blood–how about the slosh-slosh-slosh of Iraqi blood?  Or are these Iraqi deaths not terribly important to be worth reporting? 

Not only might that tell people that the war is not going well, but that the administration is entirely clueless in handling the situation.  Is Novak saying that the failure of U.S. and Iraqi government security is something the press shouldn’t report?  As I read his article, it seems to me that he is saying that reporters who report on realities in Iraq that do not conform to the most delusionally optimistic scenarios of war supporters are aiding and abetting the enemy cause.  If that is what he thinks, he should say so clearly.