Written by: Anonymous

I had the misfortune of tuning into Anderson Cooper's news program tonight in the middle of an interview. He was speaking with another one of the media's paragons of dispassionate reporting, Time's Baghdad Bureau Chief, Michael Ware. For a quick summary of what he said, read here.

But woops, as you might have noticed, this was actually a link to comments he made in 2004. But it's really quite a good summary of what he had to say tonight, and served me well since I didn't have a chance to record the interview tonight.

Of course tonight he didn't mention the elections being a sham, as I guess he knows that would be pretty hard to swallow now. He also didn't argue that Fallujah would be repeated "here, there, and everywhere", as that would have sounded a little silly as well. And no, he did not mention soldiers "atomizing" civilians, but I am sure he would have gotten around to it if he had the time.

There were some other things he didn't mention, such as the fact that the war seems to be making a lot more Iraqis into allied soldiers rather than jihadists, or the fact that the Zarqawi seems to have alienated far more Muslims than he appears to have won over, particularly in Iraq and Jordon.

But why would he know any better? There's only so much information you can garner from sitting around your hotel lobby, talking to the other journalists and confirming each other's ignorance, and waiting for your trusted buddy from the old Iraqi Ministry of Information to come bring you your news story for the evening, and to tell you "how Iraqis really feel".

Not that I know much more sitting here at my computer desk in the U.S. But I do know enough to say that this guy is an untrustworthy hack, motivated more by ideology and Bush-hatred than a desire to provide accurate reporting. It would be nice to know the real story.