Missing the Point

I'm a little late on this, but comments by USA Today Baghdad correspondent Cesar Soriano in this Howard Kurtz file have generated a reaction. Soriano:

To all the Chairborne Rangers advancing the vast 'negative media' conspiracy from the safety and comfort of their parents' basements: If you think you can do better, I've got a spare bed in the Baghdad bureau.

Oh how droll. But it rather misses the point. Most of the people criticizing Iraq war coverage aren't saying they could do better themselves--they're saying mainstream media is screwing it up, a separate proposition that Soriano ought to be able to fathom. And after all this time you'd think MSM would have a hint about what that view is based on. Bill Roggio calls Soriano on the clue phone at Insta and Blackfive:

I'd take you up on the offer of "the spare bed in the Baghdad bureau" but this Chairborne Ranger is currently embedded in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  I'll head back to Iraq for the second time this year after I make my next stop in the Horn of Africa. No doubt Michael Totten and Michael Yon, two other notable Chairborne Rangers, have similar plans.

You should also ask another group of Chairborne Rangers, such as Smash, Greyhawk, OpFor, and the other military bloggers who did their blogging from the combat zones to see if they need a rack. Oh, and I'll be bypassing Baghdad to go outside the comfort of the hotel, so you can keep the spare bed. 

Best wishes, be safe and enjoy the pool!

After which Blackfive points back to an old milblogger roll with about, oh, 80 correspondents.

Look, I have no idea what Soriano's daily routine is like but even with MS-13 flailing machetes around I'm sure his life is more risky than mine in Manassas, Va.

So. What.

Being brave is not the same thing as being good. We have multiple examples of both qualities inhabiting a single body, and one would think the honor roll is well known by now. Michael Yon. Michael Totten.  Michael Fumento with an incredible multimedia report at the Weekly Standard. And, you'll have to trust me on this, other people who are not named "Michael."

You don't have to agree with every single word written by these guys to see that it's possible to report on the good, the bad and the ugly without sneering at every American gain or saving even the trouble of that by ignoring them. And it helps in your reporting if you understand Islamofascism is about the annihilation of the West, and its importance goes beyond the effect on President Bush's approval ratings.