DAVID ADESNIK COMMENTS on some of my news-from-Iraq posts:

While it’s nice to read these stories, I still wonder whether the frustrated and disappointed GIs are holding back out of deference to their superiors. I know for sure that officers critical of the Administration are extremely reluctant to say anything at all.

Perhaps the truth will come out only after the troops have come home and are able to speak their minds.

Uh, yeah. Like in one of the posts that David links to, which is about returning troops who say things are a lot better there than the news media make them sound. Or maybe like in this post about a report from a returning soldier that things are a lot better than. . . well, you know.

Then there are posts like this one from a Federal judge and this one from a touring musician, neither of whom would seem to suffer under the constraints that Adesnik identifies.

A more valid criticism of my posts would be that they’re anecdotal, and don’t show the big picture. That’s true — and as Daniel Drezner has noted, there may not be a coherent single narrative on Iraq right now.

But that, of course, is my point. The Big Media have created a coherent single narrative (call it Vietnam II: Reloaded) and they’re engaged in selective reporting to maintain that narrative, for reasons I explore here. I’m just trying to let a little air in, by pointing out what they’re not reporting.