WaPo: Unbalanced

There is a big debate now going on within the Washington Post's corridors of power, and whoever wrote this WaPo editorial is soon going to find themselves on the losing end of it.

For example:

Mr. Murtha, a 73-year-old former Marine, was said by the White House to advocate "surrender to the terrorists" and called a coward by Republican members of Congress. He replied by smearing Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush as "guys who got five deferments and never been there, and send people to war."

Balanced reporting? Calling someone a coward is a smear. Pointing out that someone avoided war but now sends other off to die is not a smear - it's FACT.

An emotionally detached reporter might claim that it is always necessary to present both sides of an argument, but if that's true why haven't we seen hundreds of articles presenting Bin Laden's viewpoint? Sometimes you have to make a judgement call, when one side is so obviously WRONG.

The editorial basically argues that continued political bickering could cost the USA the war. Sorry, mate, but the war is already lost. Like Bush, you are talking about a victory you cannot even define.

If there is to be any chance of that war being won, the United States will have to commit its own forces to the fight for years, though perhaps not at current levels. The alternative is to risk a defeat that would be devastating to U.S. security. That's a hard truth to face: It can't be done amid a partisan free-for-all.

There is much twisted logic in this quote that I don't know where to start. You want to scale back troops but still achieve victory? How's that gonna work, in the real world? And if you increase troop numbers, you only increase the anti-American hatred that is the REAL cause of your "U.S. security" issue. Build more Abu Ghraibs? Bomb more cities? Been there, done that haven't we?

This kind of editorial is no accident, IMHO. It's part of the new Bush cabal strategy to make all the anti-war talk sound like partisan political bickering. Sorry, Karl, but the Dems are just following the public lead on this - and the public want out!

It's time the WaPo and NYT cleaned up their acts. Purge your editorial boards of the Bush apologists and tell it like it is. People are waiting and need to be told the truth for a change.

And as for Cheney's deferments! I just read this info about Cheney's fifth deferment:

On Oct. 6, 1965, the Selective Service lifted its ban against drafting married men who had no children. Nine months and two days later, Cheney had his first daughter. Cheney applied for 3-A status, the ''hardship''exemption, which excluded men with children or dependent parents. It was granted.

What sort of man has a child to avoid the war? Then sends other people's children off to die?