Day: April 4, 2003

Bradford DeLong, responding to my question to those who opposed war against Hussein’s regime (“What do you want?”):
[I want a] … world in which the story the rest of the world tells itself is (1) that of a patient U.S. that–as a last resort–overthrows a cruel and dangerous dictator who has been massacring his own people and is a threat to his neighbors.
I don’t want a world in which the story the rest of the world tells itself is (2) that of a U.S. out-of-control–whipped into war fever by a President who has lied about connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein–that invades and conquers a small country far away for confused sets of reasons that the rest of the world finds scary.
We need to cement the alliance–create a Concert of the Atlantic–if we’re to have much of a chance of keeping future crises from blowing up in our face.
So I charge you, Bear, to do everything you can to change the story the rest of the world tells itself from (2) to (1). For if this is not accomplished, Operation Iraqi Freedom will be an operational victory for the U.S. (and a definite victory for the Iraqi people) but a strategic defeat for America.
Yes!
Charge accepted, Brad. Is there any clearer definition of a blogger — of a writer — to be found, than one who changes the story of the world?
I’ll do my part. And I can only hope that it is enough…

Well, had to happen sooner or later: I disagree with something done by the fine folks over at Command Post.
Journalist Michael Kelly was killed today in an accident while covering the war as an embedded reporter with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. It goes without saying that this is horrible, and my thoughts and best hopes go to Michael’s wife, children, and all those who counted him as a friend or loved one.
However, at the risk of being dismissed as heartless, I disagree with the Command Post’s decision to run the story on Kelly’s death “above the fold” today with a sticky note which has remained at the top of the front page.
The argument that no one death should be elevated above all the others occurring during this war — from Iraqi civilians to our own soldiers to other nation’s journalists — is so banal it barely merits repeating. Yes, Kelly was a journalist, and by all accounts, a fine one at that. And as such, he is most certainly closer, in some sense, than most of the other unfortunate souls who have lost their lives during this conflict to the authors of the Command Post — including myself.
Singling him out for such treatment, however, raises more questions than it answers. Will every American journalist who dies receive such treatment? Do they have to be a Washington Post columnist and Atlantic Monthly editor to deserve it — or would a stringer from the Podunk Daily Mail get the same honors? How about British reporters? Australians? And why, exactly, is a journalist worthy of such honor, but the American soldiers who sacrificed their lives today (there were at least three) are not?
But for the Command Post, there was another, more serious reason why the above-the-fold treatment was inappropriate: it just wasn’t news.
And news is what the Command Post is all about. Alan, Michele, and the dedicated team of authors that drive the site have done an extraordinary, exceptional job at establishing a straight-ahead, just-the-facts source for breaking news on this war that is second to none. Memorializing Kelly on the front page, while obviously done with the best of intentions and sentiments, distracts from the core mission of the site: to bring together the best sources of breaking news across the media spectrum. Because as tragic as this one man’s death was to all those who knew him: in the perspective of this war, and in the perspective of the world, it simply isn’t a big story.
To be clear: I can’t speak highly enough of the Command Post’s founders, its mission, its authors, and its amazing success over the past weeks. I take it as a small point of pride that I happened to be one of the very first bloggers other than Alan and Michele themselves (the first, I think) to post to the site following the launch. And I carry a similar-sized batch of shame for the fact that I haven’t found myself able to regularly contribute to the site to nearly the degree that I’d like to.
So I hope this will be taken as a constructive critique from one who wishes only the best for the site. I hesitated, for a moment, to post this, feeling a twinge of reluctance to directly criticize the folks that I’m rooting so hard for to succeed.
But I’m a blogger, as are they. And speaking our minds is what we do. It’s all we do. And when we start censoring ourselves — well, we might as well just give up entirely and get ourselves editors.

Ok, yet another reader-participation post. (Somehow my creative juices aren’t flowing, sorry.).
I’m looking to collect bold predictions which have already been made about the outcome of the war. These can be either pro- or anti- war; only limitation is I’d like to stick to near-term predictions about the immediate outcome of the attack on Hussein’s regime — long term speculation doesn’t count for this exercise.
It is too soon to begin reaching conclusions on the rightness or wrongness of such predictions — but I’m beginning to suspect that it won’t be long now. (See, I’m doing it myself! First prediction — N.Z. Bear: “It won’t be long now”.) And I think it is part of our blogospheric duty to be prepared to retroactively fact-check everybody’s ass — including our own.
Anybody is fair game: public figures, journalists, Big Media commentators, or of course, other bloggers. Direct quotes only, and include the date of the prediction where known. And of course, links to sources are highly desirable.
I eagerly await responses…