The “left,” generically speaking, either opposed the war effort from the beginning, or turned against it the moment it looked like bad things were happening (due to their general ignorance of military matters).

I will pass over the “generically speaking,” since your very inclusion of it shows that you are aware you are unfairly broadbrushing millions of people. I do this all the time myself, but it isn’t attractive from either of us.

“either opposed the war effort”–stop right there. No, there are a insignificant, nearly nil number of people who don’t support the “war effort”. As so many do, you are conflating opposing the legitimacy and/or need for the Iraq war (which is the opinion of millions of Americans) with lack of support for the “war effort”. The overwhelming majority of people who didn’t support invasion of Iraq in 2003 meantime strongly support the war effort, both in emotional as well as material ways. I seriously doubt that conservative supporters of the Iraq invasion are any larger material or vocal supporters of the US military than progressives or liberals are. Anecdotally, I will say that there isn’t a single conservative in my own personal sphere who has sent a greater number of gifts, letters, magazines, food, and other forms of encouragement to our troops than I and a number of my progressive friends have. I believe you need to personalize it by saying that if anyone disagrees with this administration’s choice to go to war and handling of the war once there, then they are not supporting the war effort. Well, you are simply wrong from every direction if that’s how you reason it. Of course, it’s also necessary for you to claim that millions of Americans who disagree with you “turned against this war” when things looked tight, when any realistic reading of the polls from 2003 on has to show that progressives started out being against the need for this war from the inception and it is in fact significant portions of the *conservative* population who have continued to change their minds and question the very purpose for this invasion. Your characterization of millions of progressives as ignorant of military matters is a caricature and it’s not accurate and it’s not fair and it’s not helpful. So, I’d say that no, you weren’t able to accurately represent how millions of people who disagreed with you felt and to avoid making a joke of it at the same time. What good does that do?

The “left,” generically speaking, either opposed the war effort from the beginning, or turned against it the moment it looked like bad things were happening (due to their general ignorance of military matters).

The media has an overrepresentation of such people in it. Add this in with the institutional anti-military, anti-government cynicism that’s pervaded the press since the Watergate days, the “if it bleeds it leads” profit motive, and the fact that so many people on the left conflate “supporting the war effort” with “supporting the Bush administration” and you’ve got the perfect recipe for what we have now: a shallow, cynical, negative, stupid, and reflexively anti-American press corps.

It’s not hard to explain at all. Nor is it unfixable–but you can’t fix something that you won’t admit is broken.

I reject the premise of your comment. Bush has nothing to do with the effort by the left and their allies in the MSM to derail the war effort.

And anyone who cares about this entire issue should resent the spurious charges made by Mr. Cole that somehow our concerns are related to “partisan political considerations.” Is it a fact that the left is using Abu Ghraib and other abuse stories to skewer the Bush Administration and try to undermine the war effort? The question answers itself.

These arguments are not consistent. And while I’m at it, I’d really like to know what the motive is? Can you explain in a straightforward way why, as you say, the left, aided by the liberal media, want to undermine the war effort? Would you be willing to respond in a way that wasn’t a caricature of someone’s opinion, but actually something where they would say, “Yes, that accurately represents how I feel?” Because up thread you complain about having words put in *your* mouth.

An aside! I believe the term “Shadow Media” was coined by Ace. Although it seem at present to be a vaild descriptor, I wonder if some variant of “open” might be a better choice as the discriptive adjective.

Entry Word: open
Function: adjective
Text: 1 not closed or obstructed
Synonyms patent, unclosed, unobstructed
Related Word agape, dehiscent, gaping, patulous, ringent, wide, yawning; ajar; unbarred, unbolted, unfastened, unlocked, unsealed; clear, unimpeded
Contrasted Words blocked, obstructed; constricted, cramped, narrow, strait
Antonyms closed, shut
2 lacking a cover or covering
Synonyms bare, denuded, exposed, naked, peeled, stripped, uncovered
3
Synonyms LIABLE 2, exposed, obnoxious, prone, sensitive, subject, susceptible
Antonyms closed
4 not restricted to a particular group or situation
Synonyms accessible, open-door, public, unrestricted
Related Word attainable, available, obtainable, reachable, securable
Idioms to be had, within reach
Contrasted Words limited, restricted; inaccessible, private
Antonyms closed
5 available for use or consideration or decision Synonyms accessible, employable, operative, practicable, usable
Related Word appropriate, fit, proper, suitable; acceptable, agreeable, pleasing
Idioms within reach
Contrasted Words inaccessible, inoperative, unusable
Antonyms closed
6
Synonyms DOUBTFUL 1, ambiguous, dubious, dubitable, equivocal, indecisive, problematic, uncertain, undecided, unsettled
7
Synonyms FRANK, candid, openhearted, plain, straightforward, unconcealed, undisguised, undissembled, undissembling, unvarnished
Antonyms close; clandestine

Many choices seem available…for example, “Accessible Media”

There’s a great scene in the movie “Welcome to the Dollhouse” where a young Dawn Weiner — who is all of 12 years old and is brutally picked on and teased by all the other kids in her junior high school — walks down the street and comes across some 1st graders playing with a ball. The ball wanders into Dawn’s path, and instead of politely giving the ball back to the kids, she kicks it viciously into the street, while scowling at the kids angrily.

An accurate commentary on how victims promote and recycle the culture of victimhood from generation to generation.

The Dems did it to us! We’ll do it back! We’ll make them pay ten-fold!

Yeah, that inspires confidence for the future of the country.

I have seen the enemy and it is us. The rest of the world is catching up with us, already surpassing our test scores, surpassing our technology development, taking more core business across the ocean, getting into space exploration, breaking new ground in medical research, etc. and we’re sitting around playing a game of neener neener in Washington while shooting ourselves in the foot with a haphazard, incompetent and incoherent military strategy and foreign policy to fight the world’s dictators.