Where’s the news Surge?
“The Surge is working!”, the debate moderators, reporters and pundits keep telling us. Apparently it has worked so well the press doesn’t even have to cover Iraq any longer.
The Surge has worked so well that the press doesn’t even have to ask John McCain what his strategy for the war is. It’s enough to just print his speeches attacking Barack Obama.
The Surge has worked so well that most papers have ignored inconvenient facts such as the ones The Washington Post uncovered here.
The Surge has worked so well that the McCain campaign, through its shadow arm “Vets for Freedom,” can have the press uncritically report on its preposterous ad, claiming that “the Surge worked,” and that the civil war, which conservatives have heretofore insisted never existed, is now “Over!” (The ad, if you haven’t already seen it a dozen times on the news shows, is here.)
So let’s have a surge of news coverage about the surge. Let’s examine all this wonderful progress, all the political reconciliation, economic rebirth, etc. etc.
Mostly, let’s ask George Bush and John McCain and Joe Lieberman one simple question: “What’s next?”
Let’s keep asking it until we get an answer.
