The American Spectator

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br> --- Elaine Kyle /p> p> MEDIA SANITY br> Re: James Bowman's III's Media Madness : /p>

While I agree with some of what James Bowman wrote, to complete the picture of Media Madness one has to include this article and others like it that divert our attention from important issues. The game, as it is currently played, is that the "liberal media" questions or criticizes the president and the GOP and the "right wing media" criticizes the "liberal media."

So what are the important issues? Two were raised by Republicans John Warner and Lindsey Graham. John Warner asked General Petraeus if the war in Iraq is making us safer. He doesn't know. Does anybody in the current administration? Lindsey Graham outlined the cost of the war in terms of life, limb and money and asked if the sacrifice is worth it. General Petraeus and Mr. Croker couldn't say at this time. Maybe we'll know at some point in the future, say six months from now.

I found Mr. Bowman's dismissal of Al Greenspan's suggestion that the war in Iraq is about oil particularly interesting. If not oil, Mr. Bowman, then what is the war about? WMD (not found), to punish our 9/11 attackers (no connection), to get rid of a murderous tyrant (Mr. Cheney rightly warned against this during the first gulf war), to create a democracy in the Middle East (the president opposed "nation building" during his first campaign), to stand up now so we can stand down in the near future when certain benchmarks are met (not happening), to join forces with the Sunnis (the minority group in Iraq and Hussein's followers) against al-Qaeda (who were not initially in Iraq) or something else? Didn't the vice president tell us that Iraqi oil would pay for this war? That didn't work out either.

Looking for another issue that is more pressing to write about than Sally Field's comment or MoveOn. org's advertisement? Try the economy, the current deficit and the national debt. That "media mad" Al Greenspan just wrote a book about how well the president and the Republicans, those paragons of fiscal responsibility, have managed all three.

p>When are conservatives going to start being conservative and stop being apologists for the president and the GOP? br> --

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