Matt Sanchez

Obama Storms Manhattan

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:18:00 +0000

Some of the reasons why people are voting Obama.

Obama in Manhattan

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:38:00 +0000

Obama supporter on Super Tuesday 2008

WorldNetDaily: A day with the choppers

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:28:00 +0000

WorldNetDaily: A day with the choppers: "m"

Michelle

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:37:00 +0000

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A message for–and from–Matt Sanchez

By Michelle Malkin • March 8, 2007 08:05 AM

Last night, hate-filled liberals on MSNBC attemped to smear Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez and conservatives who honored him at CPAC for his support of the military at Columbia University. They gleefully showed photos of Cpl. Sanchez at the event–including ones I took–in mockery after his gay porn past was outed by left-wing blogs. They cackled “Semper Fi.”

I said the other day I thought CPAC organizers would be justified in being embarrassed if the rumors about Sanchez’s porn star past 15 years ago turned out to be true. Well, the rumors are true. But it is neither CPAC nor Cpl. Sanchez who should feel embarrassed.

It’s the nasty, gloating liberals who claim to stand for tolerance, privacy, human rights, and compassion. I predicted the other day that left-wing bigotry would rear its ugly head. I was right. The e-mail I’ve received is more disgusting than anything Ann Coulter stupidly said at CPAC. And I can imagine the vitriol Cpl. Sanchez is enduring.

We are all fallible people. My friend and colleague Bryan Preston says it well:

At the heart of the New Testament is a book called Corinthians, in which Paul describes some of the early Christians thus:

Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

“…and such were some of you…” He’s talking to some of the first Christians. Those people had histories. But change is possible.

Cpl. Sanchez sent me a link and text of the original version of a piece published last night in Salon. I am reprinting the entire piece here. It is a powerful message about the hypocrisy of liberals, the pernicious effects of the pornography industry on the soul, the phoniness of “diversity” rhetoric, and the utter pettiness of the scandal-mongers–more powerful than any Washington pundit or social policy expert could send.

This sums it up:

Why did I become a conservative? Just look at what I left, and look at who is attacking me today.

Cpl. Sanchez, it was an honor to meet you and a privilege to know you.

***

A message from Cpl. Matt Sanchez:

Was I totally clueless? When I stepped forward to talk about an anti-military bias at Columbia of course I knew my life would come under some scrutiny. We hear it everyday, with the universality of the internet, it’s impossible to have privacy. We have all done things no one wants to be advertised, but the truth is most of us aren’t important enough to rate more than a bit of gossip from a snubbed co-worker or some derision from an embittered rival. For most, life is fairly routine, but for those rare few who dare to be different, it can be a lot more harrowing.

Being Hispanic, a 100% American flag-waving red-blooded Reagan Republican, and living in New York City, I sometimes think of myself as a progressive: my views started off liberal but I progressed to conservatism. People constantly ask “How can you be a conservative, they’re so hateful.” Obviously, these poor souls have never received a Jeanne Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award from a Conservative Political Action Committee like I did this weekend.

Let me step back a second, because most of you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. In September 2005, I complained about military bias at Columbia University—New York City’s finest institution of higher learning (and I truly mean that). My fellow veterans were proud of me, happy that someone had finally spoken out. It is unfortunate Salon.com and most liberal blogs and media chose to ignore this issue. In fact, it’s even more unfortunate that ONLY conservative (traditional for you O’Reilly fans) were interested. Given the left’s constant talk about equality, discrimination, minority rights and systemic oppression, I thought appearing on CNN or MSNBC would have been a media no-brainer, a great way of spreading the non-partisan word, but so much is political today—even the double-standards have talking points.

It was a cold morning in Manhattan and I was late for classes, despite being a bit groggy from studying for my midterms, and working full-time at a marketing firm where I just made partner. I don’t drink coffee and in my morning haze, I didn’t notice the mounting messages on my obsidian Blackberry. I couldn’t distinguish the spam from the hate mail.

We all have a tendency to want to hate the enemy; I suppose that’s why Ann Coulter got applause when she used the term ragheads (that was the last Coulter scandal, or was it the Jersey Girls?) I also suppose that’s why I got so much invective when bloggers posted decade-plus pictures of me that I knew were still around, but simply chose to ignore. Did I think I could become a “public figure” without some scrutiny? Of course not! Am I so craven for attention that I’ll stop at anything to get it? I’m the first to admit that I want to be heard, read and taken seriously, but some issues really are simple and some are more complex. I always hear the complaint of information reduced to sound bytes and of the lack of depth in public discourse. Well, porn is porn; self-explanatory and of little depth. The pictures do pretty much all the talking, and in an age when pictures are so abundant, they don’t say much. I’m concerned many will feel inadequate, as a conservative, I like to insist on equal opportunity even if some start off with more than others.

I don’t like porn, it reduces the mind, flattens the soul. That’s not hypocrisy talking, that’s experience. If I started off with liberal leanings, being on a gay porn set should have been heaven. In porn, everything taboo is trivialized and everything trivial is projected. How does a conservative trace his roots to such distasteful beginnings? Like all followers of a cult, it’s tough to figure out when you stopped believing in the party-line, but I can tell you that by the time I finished my summer tour of the major studios, I was pretty disgusted with myself. It was an emotional low, and the people who surrounded me were like drug dealers only interested in being with the anesthetized in order not to shake off the stupor of being high. Why did I become a conservative? Just look at what I left, and look at who is attacking me to today? Let’s face it people, you’re all cynical enough to know that if I had espoused liberal causes, spoken out against the military, got a liberal award for courage and then outed with a porn-past, you’d be clamoring for my memoir, and nominating me for a diversity ticket with Barack Obama. Instead those who complain about wire-tapping reserve the right to eavesdrop on my private life for political brownie points. Sure, I took a picture with Ann Coulter, I don’t endorse what she said, but anyone in the military would defend her right to say it. I realize that sounds prohibitively phony, but gee it’s really true! The right to say things is precious and like so many others, my decision to serve after September 11th is even a more salient point of my past. I feel I’m duty bound to help out my fellow veterans in any fight, both foreign and domestic. The issue of anti-military bias on campus is enormous and the CPAC was correct to recognize the gravity of the situation and award those who act for change. With so many experiences since the last George Bush was in power, you’ll have to forgive me for not listing a summer job in my resume, so many years later. It’s just a part of my past, and like anyone who reflects on the past realizes, it contributes to who I am today. No apologies, just recognition. No running away, just moving forward.

I’m not clueless, I saw Jeff Ganon at the CPAC. I didn’t speak to him, and had never met him, but he seemed fine to me, despite the minor media scandal last year, or was it the year before??? It’s hard to keep track, in fact, so many scandals come and go in such a rapid cycle, like the 24 frames it takes for one second of film to give the cinematic illusion of reality. I wonder if I’m just being blasé or the readers really think the tit-for-tat sport of political “gotcha!!” amounts to something more than a Mc’Opinion: easily digested and effortlessly spewed as another “I hate those people!” anecdote. I learned a lot at the CPAC, mostly that I’m not as right-wing among the true believers as I feel in a place like New York, where people glibly promote diversity unless you don’t agree with them. I also learned that there are noteworthy citizens in this country who are dutifully engaged in public discourse and intimately committed to the autonomy of the individual. I accepted my award and spoke with great pride.

I am embarrassed to say, I thought my fellow conservative friends would distance themselves when this news came out, and I’m touched that the opposite has happened. I’ve been asked to give my point of view, invited to speak at various functions, invited to back on TV and most people have gone out of their way to give me their vote of confidence and avoid a rush to judgment. That’s really nice, I appreciate the support, but some conversations are worth having, and I’ve achieved a major victory with changing Columbia’s policy toward the military. I’m just not sure what in the world anyone wants to hear, besides his or her own dismay on how big a scandal this is, when it’s just another blip on the blogosphere.

***

Cassandra at Villanous Company:

Not content with trying to make all conservatives responsible for the perceived bigotry of Ann Coulter, now liberals want to punish Corporal Matt Sanchez for what they perceive to be the bigotry of the conservative movement as a whole.

The editorial staff has a question for these people. What did they hope to accomplish with their outing of Corporal Sanchez’ past activities? The Left is always complaining that gays face horrible bigotry and discrimination in society - that gays have to hide their sexual orientation out of fear, that the ‘religious theocrats’ of the right search out and punish anyone who doesn’t fall in line with their moral majority family values agenda. They honestly believe this.

And apparently they can’t wait to expose Matt Sanchez to the delights of the world as they see it.

Is nothing - even chapters of one’s life that are now closed - private anymore? Or didn’t they stop to think of the possible repercussions? Maybe they just don’t care. In their minds, whatever happens will serve him right for having the nerve to disagree with them politically.

Posted in: Ann Coulter, Barack Obama

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#1

On October 2nd, 2007 at 5:32 pm, mattsanchez said:

Wow, who is this Matt Sanchez guy and why would MSNBC even bother?
#2

On October 2nd, 2007 at 5:33 pm, mattsanchez said:

I can’t believe Matt Sanchez is the only person commenting on this.

Matt Sanchez

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Categories: Ann Coulter, Barack Obama

TEST

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 14:18:00 +0000

http://cplsanchez.blogspot.com/googlea2c18a1566e08036.html

Hurricane Point Rides out the Storm

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:00:00 +0000

In Ramadi, personality sometimes 'more useful than body armor'

By Matt Sanchez
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

HURRICANE POINT, Ramadi – If you head west from this small forward operating base located on Route Michigan, you'll reach a bridge that crosses a peaceful river. It would be easy to spend an afternoon walking along the riverbank, and many Iraqis do.

3/7 Marines have plenty to smile about, Ramadi is a much safer place.

But the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines out of 29 Palms know complacency kills. In fact, that adage is written on the walls near the exit as a warning to Marines about to go outside the wire and into town.

Speaking to any member of the 3/7 Marines is like talking to a history book. For those who were here last deployment, the chapters on Ramadi are written into their memory. And when asked to recall the last deployment, the Marines of the 3/7 all seem to pause, as if staring at a photo of the past, trying to match up the old image in their minds with the reality right before them.

Marine Cpl. Mickey Schaetzle was a Ramadi veteran. Back home in Colorado, he played high school football; here in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, he was in charge of the convoy transporting me and a dozen other Marines downtown. I often find myself comparing young men like Cpl. Schaetzle – capable, in charge and responsive – with the students on the Columbia University campus and campuses across America. Instead of going off to college like most kids his age, Schaetzle joined the Marine Corps "to get a little discipline" and see the world. He saw Ramadi from 2005 to 2006, where he remembered a constant state of alert and the threat of violence everywhere.

I forgot to ask Cpl. Schaetzle exactly how old he was, but he graduated from high school four years ago. He was probably about 21, which is a bit older than the average age of servicemen in Iraq, yet men like Schaetzle were anything but average.

Marines have been around as long as the United States itself, and from the beginning, "the few good men" who join the Corps have been a bit different. As a tiny unit of "soldiers of the sea," scrappy Marines struggled to prove their worth throughout every single conflict in American history. From the shores of Tripoli where they defeated Barbary pirates in what today is Libya, to the battlefields of France where one Marine officer shouted, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here," you could make a case that Marines have something to prove – to themselves, and maybe just as important, to the Corps.

Half out of desperation and half out of sheer bravado, the Marines distinguished themselves for being "first to fight." Recruitment posters for the "Great War," World War I, showed an indignant, well-dressed man pulling off his suit jacket. The caption at the bottom: "Tell That to the Marines!"

You don't just end up being a Marine by luck, or accident – it takes a concerted effort, a willingness to subject yourself to hardship in the hopes of something in return. Camaraderie, distinction or duty – defining that "something" is difficult, but if you don't know what you want, the Marine Corps will kindly make some great suggestions. Every night before going to bed, Marine recruits will stand by their racks and, on cue, shout at the top of their lungs, "honor, courage, commitment." Recruits bang the thin government-issued mattresses after every promise, so that the physical body will conform, retain and respond to each verbal pledge. For the Marines, muscle memory applies to the heart as well.

All members of the military have sworn to protect the nation, but Marines brag they'll do it first, in fact they insist. It's one thing to flirt with combat, it's even more daring to become an "03" Marine infantry rifleman during a time of war. When Schaetzle enlisted, that's what he decided to be.

"Things are a lot better now," Schaetzle said of the new Ramadi where Marines did not have to run on foot patrols trying to avoid fire from rooftops.

The "new" Marines of the 3/7 – the ones who were not around for the first deployment – will sometimes gripe that the current state of Ramadi is too boring. "Nothing happens," said one private first class on his first tour to Iraq. Schaetzle's just happy those Marines do not have to deal with what the media came to call "the most dangerous city in the world."

In the fall of 2006, a very international and critical press ran headlines saying, "We have lost Anbar Province!"

The source of that leaked report was Marine Corps intelligence officer Col. Peter Devlin. With over 20 years in the Corps, Devlin's assessment of the situation on the ground was alarming. Less than a year later, Anbar, a province named after the granaries and the abundance of its fertile land, is considered the fruition of success in the Iraq policy.

I contacted Col. Devlin via e-mail. Many members of the military have complained of being misquoted, so I'm reprinting his statements precisely as he wrote them to me:

"Quite obviously, the situation in the province has improved dramatically since then, to my great relief. As I have maintained since this improvement became apparent this spring (2007), the assessments that I made last year were accurate for the timeframe within which they were written. Things were that bad and the prospects for improvement seemed very bleak. I do not believe that any other intelligence professional would have developed a much different assessment for al-Anbar last summer and fall."

Devlin, the internationally quoted Marine intelligence officer, is glad things have changed, but he did call the publishing of a secret report "an absolute disgrace."

The Marines of the 3/7 would have recognized the details of Devlin's descriptions in the fall of 2006. Street-to-street fighting, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and ambushes characterized the Anbar Cpl. Mickey Schaetzle had known and would never forget, even after moving on from the Marine Corps.

Looking to the future, Schaetzle told me, "I want to go back to school and become a physical therapist."

"Why do you think you're ready for college now?," I asked. Like many who enlist, Schaetzle just didn't think college was for him after years in high school. For lots of young men and women, the Corps provided a different kind of education, with a lesson plan that just couldn't be found in a textbook.

"I know more what I want," he said with confidence.

What will the effect be on American society when all these young men and women who have seen and done so much come home to live normal lives?

"You're not going to be like everyone else," I said.

"That's OK, I'm not going to tell anyone I'm a Marine or anything. I just want to study in peace." I always ask troops what they're going to do when they get out. Getting out, leaving the safety and comfort is a big step. I've met many servicemen and women who leave and then come back, after finding civilian life to be less satisfying. "Go to school" is the No. 1 answer – a lot of the 3/7 Marines want to take what they have learned and experienced, and apply it to other areas of a life they know has completely changed. Defectors Situations and settings change, people change, but is it possible for former enemies to become friends, or at least to work together? The complaint of fighting alongside former insurgents who have American blood on their hands may distress people back home, but I've heard a different opinion in Iraq.

Infantry officer Capt. Dave Hart with the 3rd Battalion 6th Marines said he would "rather see a defection than a capture, even if these guys were fighting us two or three weeks ago." A capture was a drain on resources, another person to arrest, guard and process through a system that began on its hands and knees and was attempting to take its first steps. A defection was a loss for the other side, an asset for the home team, a fighter not only trained, but intimate with enemy tactics.

"Every time we went out, we were going to get into a fight," said Maj. Rory Quinn of the 3/7. Hurricane Point was no picnic, but the Marines of the "cutting edge" 3/7 are used to harsh conditions.

Almost every Marine I've met has an opinion, criticism or horror story about 29 Palms, even the ones who have never seen it. Nicknamed "29 Stumps" and smack dab in the Mohave desert, the vast 29 Palms is the toughest place for a Marine to be stationed, or at least that's what they say. Mohave Viper, the training exercise "The Stumps" hosts for Marines to get training in preparation for deploying to Iraq, is said to prepare Marines the best and most realistically for conditions in the Middle East. No stranger to hard realism himself, Quinn, a native of New York, is serving his second tour in Ramadi.

Quinn is an all-around easy-going guy. He gets along well with the Iraqis, which is not surprising – he is part of the power structure. And from the younger Marines – the ranks below sergeant, the ones who are about to get out and have nothing to lose when they offer their opinion – I didn't hear one unkind word about Major Quinn, a rarity.

"You've got to drink the chai," Quinn said. I never saw him refuse a cigarette either, Iraqis will always offer before lighting up themselves.

"We made the mistake last time around of not focusing on the people of the city," he said.

In the current "permissive" state of security in Ramadi, personality may be more useful than body armor. "Permissive" was one of those terms a lot of military types repeated just like "kinetic," "tactical" and "malingering" – they sound really specific, but the vocabulary is subject to interpretation. "Permissive," here in Ramadi, meant the threat was distant, but that Marines never relaxed.

The following morning we drove down Route Michigan to an Iraqi police station. The occasion was a Ramadi city council. As soon as Quinn arrived, the Iraqis swarmed over to meet and great him.

"We try to stay in the background and let these guys do their job," said Quinn. This was democracy at work – not Democracy with a capital D, the stuff political philosophers like Socrates, Locke and John Adams spoke of – but the democracy of local government where normal people sat in a town hall-style audience, listened to what politicians promised and then got up and gave the authorities sitting behind the table a piece of their mind. This was the practical democracy of people arguing, compromising, misrepresenting, accusing, arguing and settling on some sort of agreement.

One indignant man got up and accused the members of the board of stealing contracts. "The guys can be pretty cutthroat, they get really jealous when one contractor wins out over another," an American from USAID told me. The council members, who are not eligible to bid on contracts, assured the irate man that the process was transparent. Marines supervised the transparency, and like referees in a boxing match tried to make sure everyone followed the rules.

Another man in a white dishdasha, the customary robe many Middle Eastern men wear, sprang out of his seat and pointed a finger at someone across the room. Shouting started and the leader of the council tried to restore order. The interpreter couldn't keep up with the back-and-forth, but as with a rushed text message, I got the gist of the problem: "My honor," "He's lying," "You don't keep your promise!"

"I call this man-drama," said Quinn, referring to the public spats and intrigues that went on between Iraqi men. One police officer shot himself in the hand, apparently trying to show off to his buddies. Another contractor accused a competitor of being a terrorist to authorities, possibly because he lost out on a bid. A father insulted a neighboring family when he refused to let his daughter marry their son. And the list went on.

In a public culture where women have been almost entirely absent, many men in Iraq and throughout the Middle East take on an etiquette that could sometimes revert to the level of kids fighting on the blacktop during recess at an elementary school.

I never thought of how fortunate we are back home to have women who cannot only take a stand, but who temper the male behavior, no matter how crazy they make us. The only time you saw a man and woman together in Iraq, especially in the smaller towns, was when a covered mother carried her toddler to market and let her older son address the male vendors on her behalf.

The souk, or marketplace, had been closed down during much of the fighting. The threat of car bombs, suicide bombers and IEDs was too great, and if the streets were littered as they were before, you would find it nearly impossible to spot a "tomato can" IED, a dangerous little explosive that could easily kill a pedestrian or two.

"We're hiring locals to pick up the garbage," said Capt. Marcus Mainz, commanding officer of Lima Company and on his first tour in Iraq. Garbage collection, construction projects and other public works are economic shots in the arm and part of the strategy for both improving the city and making it safer. But in typical Marine fashion, Capt. Mainz' AO (area of operations) has gone above and beyond the call of duty. His lieutenant, Luke Larson, has participated in the organization of a 5-kilometer race down roads that pedestrians avoided.

The race is on

I stood on a bridge overlooking Route Michigan. One of the sergeants told me that, in the past, our military would never stand on this bridge – too easy a target for snipers. Runners, all male, lined up at the starting line for one of the first public events in recent history. There were easily 200 runners, even considering that tight security may have prevented neighboring athletes from entering the town. There was still a ban on vehicle traffic in the downtown area, there had not been a car bomb in several months and the mayor of Ramadi, Latif Obaid Ayadah, told me he was cautious about changing the situation, but he was really excited about building hotels to spur tourism.

"This is the capital," he said, and "it would be a great investment." The mayor knew the time was nearing when Ramadi could become a normal city, but the danger was nowhere near its end.

The runners finished near a roundabout, a spot where several Marines had been wounded the year before. Musicians arrived after a happy mob engulfed the winner of the race. Police officers started to dance in circle, each following traditional steps that I've seen throughout the Middle East. The scene was about as jarring as the names of the neighboring streets: Moron, Firecracker, Botta bing. The people of Ramadi had not forgotten how to celebrate.

The announcer on the loud speaker called the names of Marines and I snapped pictures of Iraqis handing Capt. Mainz, Sgt. Humphrey and lieutenants Larson and Mujica trophies. It was a nice movie moment, the point when credits roll and only a few stay seated in the theatre to read the names. But life has never been like a Hollywood film and the Marines of the 3/7 are not actor on some stage.

The media's free ride in Iraq

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Sanchez) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:23:00 +0000

By Matt Sanchez

The New Republic published entries from the "Baghdad Diarist," a soldier who was supposedly reporting on the realities of being in Baghdad. The "diarist" was proven to be a fraud, while the liberal media claimed even if the story was fake, it could have been true and that's what counts. Discerning facts from fiction is an obstacle the media trips over daily.

If the media are the eyes, ears and voice of a democracy, our nation is currently deaf, dumb and blind.

The conflict in Iraq is complicated, and yet the media has dumbed-down that complexity by communicating in flashy breaking-news banners with "expert analysis" that is, in fact, amateur opinion given by activist glamour correspondents whose names are synonymous with their news programs.

Take the main issue in Iraq: creating a sustainable economy out of a formerly totalitarian one-product, socialist state. The complexity of building (not rebuilding, since much of the "damage" was simply the norm in Saddam's Iraq) is marred in a politically driven game of gotcha, where an activist press plays hide-and-seek with the facts to pander to niche audiences while pretending objectivity and professionalism.

Instead of reporting, analysis and theory, we get political slogans and clichs. "No war for oil." "No military solution to Iraq's political problem." "Failed strategy." "A quagmire in Iraq." Any of these bumper stickers is fine as a starting point, but not as an all-encompassing conclusion, especially without some in-depth scrutiny.

After spending time with the mainstream media, it's not hard to understand why the coverage coming from Iraq is, as Staff Sgt. Rodriguez from the 4-9 cavalry from Texas put it, "Completely wrong ... in my opinion."

Unlike any other player on the board, the press has no oversight, no mandate, few penalties and even fewer consequences. In Fallujah, a suicide bomber killed one victim, but an "unidentified police officer" reported over 20 dead and just as many casualties. Because there are "not enough" reporters on the ground, newsrooms want to cover the war "on the cheap." Many bureaus have outsourced both their reporting and standards to third-party "stringers" whose spectacular videos of explosions and inflated body counts have shown up on both jihadist recruiting sites and American television screens, simultaneously. These hacks-for-hire literally get more bucks for each bang. In Ramadi, I met a man who worked for al-Qaida as a propagandist, while moonlighting at Reuters, AFN and CNN in the same capacity.

In an arm-wrestling match between progress and propaganda, the media has conflicted values when covering Iraq. A successful insurgent will always get more recognition than a successful infantryman – no matter how many successful infantrymen there are. The reward of media coverage for bad behavior has a Pavlovian effect on attention-seeking terrorists.

The media can plea that Iraq is unsafe, and they can blame the military for not "securing their right to cover events freely." But that gives a lot of responsibility to the military and questions the autonomy of the press. In other words, is there a military solution for guaranteeing the rights of a free press? In Iraq, the answer is a resounding "of course," but a press in denial is opposed to admitting that it's not the military impeding their reporting, but the failed strategy of a compromised media campaign. Yes, they should have factored in that terrorists might be hostile to their presence and indifferent to their "freedom of expression."

Have the media made mistakes in coverage? Of course, but in an industry where some claim to be "keeping them honest," there's no penalty for false or misleading reports. Accountability is as desirable as rotting stacks of last week's newspaper. So, who watches the watchmen?

After I wrote an article critical of the media coverage in Iraq, I got a concerned e-mail from a Barnard graduate working with the Washington Post – an opinion-shaping newspaper. She saw my piece and insisted reporters "go through great lengths to get the story right." This may be true, but when the press gets it wrong, there is no story; they just move on. No long exposes on cover-ups, no trick questions for journalists or grilling hearings.

I distinctly recall a newscaster saying, "The Sunni Triangle will never settle for an American occupational force." I just spent a month in Ramadi, in the soul of the "Sunni Triangle" (a made-up name marketed by the New York Times, just like "Shock and Awe"). In Ramadi, I saw crowds of Sunnis thanking Marines for helping to expel al-Qaida and asking for more help from the American military. Will the media reflect on earlier statements and analyze what was previously reported, or will it simply move on?

Today, information is a commodity as valuable as the items thrown into Wal-Mart's weekly bargain bin – merchandise to be picked over and looked at to see if there's something both useful and cheap.

The Baghdad Diarist – a story I helped to debunk with simple facts and cited statements – is dismissed by the editors and readers of The New Republic because they have plenty of product to drown out criticism. Besides, the TNR readership really didn't care about the particulars; they just wanted a story to support their worldview.

As I read much of the Western press, I wonder, whose side are these guys on? Of course, the answer is that they're supposed to remain neutral. In Iraq, I suspect we'll find that neutrality right next to the weapons of mass destruction.

Matt Sanchez

Obama Storms Manhattan

Obama in Manhattan

WorldNetDaily: A day with the choppers

Michelle

A message for–and from–Matt Sanchez

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Hurricane Point Rides out the Storm

The media's free ride in Iraq