good news? you want good news?

If I hear one more preppie Republican pundit bewail the lack of reporting on the good news happening in Iraq, I’m going to engage in projectile vomiting.

Perhaps the ultimate preppie, Laura Ingraham went on The Today Show to suggest the show go on the road to Baghdad or Talafar for a week and interview American soldiers in the field instead of standing on the balcony of a Baghdad hotel reporting about the latest IED explosion.

Thankfully, Keith Olbermann was around to speak up on MSNBC, saying “A note about Laura Ingram's comments. I've known her a long time. I'll in fact give you the caveat that I've know her socially. But that hotel balcony crack was unforgivable. In was unforgivable to the memory of David Bloom, it was unforgivable in considerable of Bob Woodruff and Doug Vought, unforgivable in light of what happened to Michael Kelly and what happened to Michael Weiskopft. It was unforgivable with Jill Carroll still a hostage in Iraq. And it was not only unforgivable of her; it was desperate and it was stupid.”

Let’s be blunt.

If there was ANY good news coming out of Iraq it would be plastered on Fox News (one brief vowel movement away from completely describing what they do to journalism) 24/7. There is no good news. Baghdad emergency rooms have only one hour of electricity per day. No power. No water. No public safety. And plenty of civil war, no matter how hard George and his lackeys try to spin the subject and deny the facts.

George W. Bush's poll numbers are so far down in the crapper that Richard Nixon's Administration is beginning to look like The Good Old Days. You think those numbers would be buoyed by video of happy Iraqis showering our troops with flowers and treating them as liberators? Hell, even some video of a working power plant or water purification facility would help. And if there was even that to show to the people back home, Roger Ailes would shit himself getting a Fox News crew to Iraq with a camera and Geraldo Rivera in tow.

Do you see coverage of good news coming out of Iraq on Fox News? No.

Instead, what you see are Republican operatives bewailing the lack of coverage of the good news in Iraq by mainstream news outlets.

Good news? To borrow a phrase from the Marines, Iraq is a first-class Cluster Fuck.

It pisses me off. All they’re doing is trying to slam down the credibility of journalism and paint journalists as un-American and Liberal Elitists in order to deflect the fact that the Bush (mis)Administration’s War in Iraq is a total fiasco.

But does anyone push back? No.

Bush and Co. went into Iraq for their own personal reasons and they've created a mess. By framing the debate by blaming the "liberal media" for the lack of good news reporting they're trying to pass the blame onto liberals in general and Democrats in particular. And the more they go unchallenged in this attempt, the more they will continue the tactic.

Journalists are being blown up in Iraq. They’ve been kidnapped in Iraq. Italian journalists have been fired on by U.S. Troops as they’re being freed from Iraqi captors. If they venture out tightly controlled sectors of Baghdad, they’re fired on, blown up, held hostage and threatened with beheading.

This kind of Republican strategy is to say the least disingenuous. For them to call journalists un-Patriotic is, in and of itself, the most un-Patriotic thing they can do.

Tell you what -- let's report on what the REAL good news is coming out of Iraq, becuase, irony of ironies, there is good news coming out of Iraq if you're George W. Bush or a member of his inner circle. The Good News for them, the Republican Gospel, if you will, is that Iraq has been a golden teat they've all been sucking on now for three years and to the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars.

They make it sound like the funding the War in Iraq is about supporting the troops, and that is perhaps the biggest, sickest lie these assholes have ever told. Funding the War in Iraq is about funding Halliburton. It's about funding Kellogg, Brown and Root and the treasure trove of war related business that have sprung up and thrived on the endless supply of no-bid contracts the administration has handed out.

Support the troops? These assholes are billing wounded soldiers for their lost flak vests and meals while in the military hospital. They've cut pay for troops and mis-deployed troops. They've scrimped and handed out needed support material with eye-droppers. All the while they've outsourced everything they possibly can, from laundry services to chow lines, to corporate entities that soak the government at obscene rates. It's no surprise that these supposed cost-cutting measures have been exponentially more expensive.

From now on, whenever you hear one of these Republican War Hawks screech about Supporting the Troops, tell yourself that what he's really saying is "Supporting Halliburton." And then tell the sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch that you're voting for someone else. Someone who might actually -- really -- support the troops and bring them home.

More soon.