The Baghdad McCain won't tell you about

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yeah, sure he'd walk through Baghdad without protection. Such courageous speech. For John McCain these days, it's all Bush-style happy talk, delusional belief in the righteousness of the cause (and the winnability of the war), and Democrat-bashing.

The warmongers always tell us about what the media aren't telling us about Iraq. You know, the good news -- whatever that is. I wonder. There are daily stories of violence and death, blood-spattered images of murder and mayhem. But -- no, no. Everything is fine. Or, at least, things are getting better -- all the time, all the time. Yeah, sure. Whatever. Even if there is good news, and I'm sure there is, the bad news, so commonplace that it barely registers anymore, is hardly to be outdone.

And the bad news goes beyond the bombs and bloodshed. Consider this image, a telling snapshot of another side of Iraq that goes unreported, the other Iraq, the forgotten Iraq: "An Iraqi woman sifts through a Baghdad rubbish dump looking for metal and plastic objects to sell for recycling." (Conservatives might praise her entrepreneurial spirit. I'm sure she sees it differently.)

Perhaps McCain, Bush successor that he hopes to be, should go back over there and take a stroll through this landscape of misery.