PORPHYROGENITUS pulls a tidbit from the John F. Burns story I linked over the weekend — American journalists in Iraq have hired their old Saddamite “minders” as factotums.

And we wonder why the news is bad. As Porphyrogenitus notes:

So our “free press” are so annoyed by and opposed to censorship that they’re employing their own minders now that Saddam is no longer able to pay them. And we wonder why the quotes they get from Iraqis – who aren’t stupid and do know who worked for the Ba’athist regime – tell the interpreters the things they do, and the interpreters then tell the reporters, who then report back to America in a certain tone. If we’ve been wondering why there is such a disconnect between what the news reports are saying about conditions and attitudes in Iraq, and what independent people who go there without hiring on ex-Iraqi Information Ministry minders to screen information for them say about Iraq, well now we know.

Yes, we do. And perhaps this sort of blatant hypocrisy colors the Iraqis’ views of Americans in general.