The old In-and-Out (S)urge

The press hasn't taken much notice, but once again The Decider has decided to change his story.

You may recall that, in the hours following the Republicans' November election debacle, Bush vowed not to be swayed by public opinion. Instead, he said, he would follow the lead of his carefully chosen kennel of generals.

However, as A. Alexander points out in the Progressive Daily Beacon, now that the "Joint Chiefs of Staff and practically every actively serving General strongly opposes George W. Bush's proposed Iraq 'Surge' Plan...you've probably not heard too much about the Generals' general discontent. The average American probably hasn't heard about it, because the media only barely reported on the Generals' mutiny. True to form, the press dutifully ignored the Generals' concerns, but widely reported on the White House's insistence that the Generals generally didn't disagree with the President....However, in the event that the Generals, who don't disagree with the President, do decide to disagree with the President's Iraq 'Surge' plan - the President doesn't care, because he's 'The Decider.'"

The press' blackout of the generals' opposition to "The Decider's" scheme, Alexander adds, "even continued when Rumsfeld's very Rumsfeld-like 'stay the course' replacement, Robert Gates, traveled to Iraq and was told by the 'commanders' on the ground that they, too, disagreed with 'The Decider's' Iraq 'Surge' Plan. Indeed, these were very dark days for 'The Decider' and his dream of escalating the Iraq War. Fortunately for 'The Decider,' the press was mostly ignoring the Generals' collective revolt" (for the rest of Alexander's commentary, go to The Progressive Daily Herald).

In more ways than one, it's all remindful of the venerable L.A. bumper sticker applauding the "In-and-Out urge."

Alexander goes on to note that, while ignoring the generals and the equally adamant opposition to the surge that Gates encountered among field officers during his pass through Iraq, the media discovered a story it could love in the covey of privates, PFCs and corporals who told Gates they supported the president's "surge." As Alexander puts it, "while they continued to ignore the Generals' mutiny, America's fine press was all over the comments made by fifteen fresh-out-of-boot camp Privates."

The establishment media have been woefully -- shamefully -- sycophantic since the day the NeoCons began ballyhooing this ill-conceived and incompetently executed "war." The shame continues. The sad fact is that no democracy can survive without a free, independent and responsible press. Keith Olbermann and the faux journalists on the Comedy Channel notwithstanding, we are without an independent Fourth Estate.

At our peril.