The last breath of the press.

Ralph Peters of The New York Post in Iraq: (emphasis mine)

"The reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.

Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?

Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business and everyday life in abundance.

Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won't give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They'll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn't London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.<...>You are being lied to. By elements in the media determined that Iraq must fail."

You want more from Iraq? IraqPundit has this:(emphasis mine)

"Why do these reporters want to see a civil war so badly in Iraq? It looks to me that they hate Bush so much that they will stop at nothing to prove that he's wrong about Iraq and they are right. The reporters have sunk so low as to take this cheap angle of insisting that an all out civil war has been underway for three years. When will they wake up and realize that this is not a White House scandal. This is about Iraq and its people. Yes some people are being aggressive and I pray that the violence doesn't spread. But why do the media report exaggerated numbers of attacks and damage when it can only make a bad situation worse. What ever happened to checking for accuracy? Iraq the Model posted a list of numbers of what really was damaged.

The thugs of Moktada Al Sadr were responsible for most of the attacks. And the Interior Ministry's death squads were sent out by Bayan Jabr Solagh, who headed the Badr Brigades. IraqPundit is under no illusion that things are good right now. However, there is no reason to take the tabloid angle and declare a civil war when the parties who would fight that war have not yet declared one. The media appear to prefer to go for the schock approach instead of a responsible one."

Speaking of accuracy:

"Iraq's Cabinet, meanwhile, disputes a Washington Post tally of 13-hundred Iraqi dead in the past week, calling that number "inaccurate and exaggerated."

The Post cited figures from the Baghdad central morgue in its report on deaths in the violence since a Shiite shrine was destroyed. But a morgue official says as of Sunday night it had only received 249 bodies tied to the violence."

Via Mudville

I cannot wrap my mind around the clear evidence that there is reporting going on that is DETERMINED to paint President Bush and American soldiers in a bad light for what seems to be one reason and one reason only...to make sure Bush is not proven right.

Is there no honor in the journalism profession at all? No honesty??

I have read, not one, not two, but several opinion pieces in the last few days from respected intelligent people who are either in or just returned from Iraq. What they are saying is very different from what the msm is reporting and very different from what the milblogs are saying.

What the hell is going on here???? Whether you agree with the war or not, I don't think any of us want it sabotaged in the press. We want the truth, don't we????

We deserve better. I don't know how, but we have got to start demanding accurate reporting regarding the war. The press is only shooting itself in the foot here. The more people distrust the msm, the more they will turn to the internet for news and information.

The way I see it, the biggest casualty of this war may be the press itself.