The new face of journalism: sitting on your butt and taking credit for the work of others

I’ve ranted about this recently, and now the incomparable Neal Pollack chimes in:

This war is complicated, and I fear that traditional media aren’t up to the task of explaining its complex complexities. The embedded reporters are plagued by combat inexperience, night blindness, or, in the case of the turncoat Brits, anti-American Fifth Column traitor tendencies. Not so us bloggers. We see through the muck that fills our TV and computer screens as we monitor them obsessively, not “pathetically,” as our detractors in the old media say, 24 hours a day. We see what no one else can, because no one else is looking in the same places that we are. Our minds are very sharp pencils, and we’re poking the world in the collective eye.

Just look at all the ground broken, on this site alone, since the war began:

— I was the first writer, by nearly 20 seconds, to declare the anti-war movement completely bankrupt because of the stupid actions of a small radical fringe group in San Francisco. Subsuquently, I beat everyone to the gym by accurately suggesting that American combat deaths are quite possibly the fault of anti-war protesters.

— snip —

— Last Friday, I wrote that Saddam Hussein had done something bad to someone at some time in the past, and that the time for debate was over. This is war, I said. Our enemies can do no right, and we no wrong. Except for Shepherd Smith, the lack of moral courage on the part of journalists continues to stun me.

Neal’s also got a couple of (non-satirical) guest entries from his military correspondents, so go spend some time there.

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Not too much more from me today, probably — deadlines loom. And as any true patriot understands, the only thing more important to the war effort than blogging is, of course, cartooning.