Michael Fumento

Military public affairs keeps thinking that if they just keep licking the boots of the mainstream media, that media will finally give our troops an even break and accurately report the war. That or it's absolutely clueless that in a guerrilla war, as the Tet Offensive so well demonstrated, perception as relayed by the media is far more important than reality. As to citizen embeds like me, with a track record for supporting the troops and reporting facts, as I note in my Daily Standard article, I was offered literally no embed but Tikrit - where there is no war. This is notwithstanding that one of the two principals responsible for this idiocy, Col. Stephen Boylan, reports directly to Gen. Dave Petraeus, commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq. And he knows Petraeus said of my first Ramadi article: "Great stuff with a great unit in a very tough neighborhood!" Obviously Col. Boylan and Lt. Col. Garvin, head of the Combined Press Information Center, think we need that type of reporter twiddling his thumbs in a pacified area of Iraq, leaving us dependent on the mainstream media to provide war news collected from Baghdad hotels.