Media Watchdog? Deaf, Dumb & Blind Pussycat?

Howard Kurtz notes that the MSM is becoming more emboldened in its relentless attacks against the Iraq War. Kurtz tries to be balanced:

But ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas reminded viewers that before her co-anchor, Bob Woodruff, was injured by a roadside bomb in late January, he did a story on a thriving Baghdad ice cream shop, and that her December trip to Iraq included a piece on a ballet school.

Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio talk show host who recently spent eight days in Iraq, says some soldiers complained to her that their views, which were mixed, aren't being reflected by the media.

"It's not about painting a rosy picture," she says. "It's not about putting all good news out there. It's about there being some context. It's not just explosions every day, and that is primarily what is seen, in snapshots and flashes. And that does over time cement the public's view that this is irretrievably a disaster and the whole nation is in flames."

When news organizations focus overwhelmingly on insurgent attacks, Ingraham says, "it begins to look like you're invested in America's defeat."

That sounds like political overstatement.

But then he leans towards his hubris left-tendencies. See if you can catch the impossible assumption contained in his next para:

if journalists seem far more aggressive these days, it may be because their performance contrasts sharply with the period after the Sept. 11 attacks and in the run-up to the war, when news organizations have conceded they did an inadequate job examining the administration's WMD claims.

The answer: If Saddam's top generals didn't know of the WMD transfer to Syria/Lebanon and if the CIA/Brit intell didn't know, just how would a bunch of fumblers like "news organizations" get the scoop?

Just a bunch of preposterously self-important drunks, as at least Mark Ware admitted when he was on the Maher Show.