Kind of a cool little thing here, courtesy of my friend Mike (yeah, the Pole), who I think got it from his father. So props to Pawel for hooking us up with this.
As Mike would say, it's a little skeletal, but it's still good.

An interesting plea in today's Salon, challenging loudmouth Bill O'Reilly to an email interview about a piece by fellow loudmouth Gary Kamiya. Now, I didn't read Kamiya's piece, because I dislike him a little more than I dislike Bill O'Reilly, but what I found fascinating is this brief passage:

Salon is not a doctrinaire or party-line publication. We have run antiwar pieces and pro-war pieces; we have lauded the antiwar movement and critiqued it, too. We seek the full, free exchange of ideas that is the hallmark of liberal discourse. And we believe that there is still room for, even hunger for, honesty and nuance in political debate.

Now that's an interesting way to look at Salon. Not party-line, giving equal time, and all that nonsense. Now I'm not saying that I don't sometimes enjoy reading Salon, but "not a doctinaire or party-line publication"? That's just laughable. Even more amazing, here's the paragraph immediately preceding the one quoted above:

Of course, the real agenda of conservative media's overbearing pundits -- despite their lip service to the marketplace of ideas -- is to drive everyone who disagrees with them out of the public arena. They're not interested in open debate; their goal is to intimidate and silence. If you dare oppose the war, if you dare even admit any ambivalence about it, then you should be gagged and expatriated. In the current climate of mind control, you can't even admit to having entertained thoughts that are not "appropriate," even if you end up rejecting them.

'Nuff said, I think.
Also, been catching a lot of reviews of Eric Alterman's book lately, and I wanted to take issue with one of his points (sorry, I can't remember where I read this particular thing, so no link). In his diatribe against the idea of a liberal media bias, he at one point lists a slew of conservative commentators as if to say, "Look at all the conservative journalists! What bias??"
He lists folks ( the so-called "punditocracy") such as Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Sean Hannity, William F. Buckley, Brit Hume, the WSJ editorial board, and so on (and on, and on). OK, fair enough -- these guys and others ARE indeed conservative. Maybe even arch-conservative, I don't know. But the point is, with the possible exception of Brit Hume, all the the guys he lists are commentators. You're supposed to know their bias, because they give their opinions!
To me, the argument misses the point. The real insidious media bias comes from those who are just supposed to be reporting the news, not giving their opinions. People like Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite (back in the day, anyway) Tom Brokaw, John Burns, Serge Schememan...all the way down to little ol' me, writing for my weekly paper -- you're NOT supposed to know our bias, because we're just supposed to be reporting the facts. And here's a fact -- not everyone does a good job of hiding their biases when writing news peices. In fact, many reporters don't even try to hide it. Hence, the idea of a liberal media bias -- reporters, many of whom are liberal, slanting their supposedly objective news stories to the left.
I mean, holding commentators to the same standard as reporters? That's just ridiculous. It completely misses the point.

Two of my favorite things, together at last. No, not airplane glue and toast -- Christopher Hitchens and The Onion.
Also, if this article isn't about my friend Dave, then I don't even know what to think. The guy has the worst -- and best -- DVD collection around.

And I think it's too early to tell, but Mark Bowden's analysis of The (now happening) Battle of Baghdad seems, viewed in retrospect, a little gloomy. We'll see, though. I'm not one of the guys who is wringing his hands over the fact that this war has lasted (GASP!) 20 whole days thus far.
Seriously, I saw that DAY 20 banner on CNN yesterday, and I was amazed. In 20 days we've circled the capital and are systematically marching in and out as we please. In 1940, Paris hadn't yet been declared an open city on Day 20. And that's the prototype for a quick collapse.
American military might. It's impressive.

I know a lot of folks have been debating -- and debating, and debating -- the quality and purpose of so-called "embedded reporting." I'm of a few minds on the subject.
On the one hand, I agree wholeheartedly with Jonah Goldberg, who swears up and down that the embeds from the print media are far better than the television journalists. The print stories -- in the New York Times, Washington Post, and so forth -- are just so damned vivid. And say what you will about Big Print Media's propensity to editorialize in news pieces; it just ain't happening out there in the field. It's super-cool, I think.
Check this piece in the Times from Steven Lee Myers -- it's great. Also this piece in the Post, and if you have the time, read about Matt Labash's exploits with one Christopher Hitchens (my hero!) in The Weekly Standard.
On the other hand, there's nothing quite like seeing pictures of things happening halfway around the world in real time. Problem is, they seldom seem to be able to catch the really juicy stuff.