Foreign news bureaus are either in or near the few operating hotels such as the Al Hamra, the Rashid, or the Palestine. Like battleships that have been badly damaged but are still at sea, these hotels have survived repeated bomb attacks and yet have managed to stay open. A few hotels like the Rashid, where once there was a mosaic depicting George Bush Sr. on the floor of the lobby, are sheltered within the Green Zone. A few other bureaus have their own houses, usually somewhat shabby villas that have the advantage of being included inside some collective defense perimeter that makes the resulting neighborhood feel like a walled medieval town.
Wherever in the city the news bureaus are, they have become fortified installations with their own mini-armies of private guards on duty twenty-four hours a day at the gates, in watch towers, and around perimeters. To reach these bureaus, one has to run through a maze of checkpoints, armed guards, blast-wall fortifications, and concertina-wired no man's lands where all visitors and their cars are repeatedly searched.
The bitter truth is that doing any kind of work outside these American fortified zones has become so dangerous for foreigners as to be virtually suicidal. More and more journalists find themselves hunkered down inside whatever bubbles of refuge they have managed to create in order to insulate themselves from the lawlessness outside. (A January USAID "annex" to bid applications for government contracts warns how "the absence of state control and an effective police force" has allowed "criminal elements within Iraqi society [to] have almost free rein.")
Yes, this all sounds like the media's fault. And they should also complain to CBS' Lara Logan, who's actually there, and has made an honest effort to report both good and bad, despite Laura Ingraham's self-serving horseshit.
Likewise, they need for it to appear that only "radical leftists" want Bush impeached, when in fact plenty of ordinary folks, the kind Bush pretends to be, want it to happen as well, if only for the sake of accountability, at long last.
Window cleaner Ira Clemons put down his squeegee in the lobby of a city mall and stroked his goatee as he considered the question: Would you support your congressman's call to impeach Bush? His smile grew until it looked like a three-quarters moon.
"Why not? The man's been lying from Jump Street on the war in Iraq," Clemons said. "Bush says there were weapons of mass destruction, but there wasn't. Says we had enough soldiers, but we didn't. Says it's not a civil war -- but it is." He added: "I was really upset about 9/11 -- so don't lie to me."
Sounds like yet another typical leftie Hollyweird douche nozzle who wants to spread his hate of America.
It's really simple. If Mental Ben or any of the other Fightin' Keyboard Kommandos would like to show us all the good news stories out there, then let one of them strap on a camera already and give Faux News an exclusive, from the Iraqi heartland to the American one. Just do it, guys. We're all waiting for you to put your money where your big mouths are.
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