Yes, the final tally isn't in yet, but all indications are that Iraqi voters this weekend approved a constitution. Yet this apparent historic step on the road to representative democracy in a huge, vitally-strategic, Middle East nation previously controlled by an ex-chicken thief and party assassin turned Supreme Despot and Chief Officer of Graft and Murder, was just so much ho-hum to many front page editors at major daily newspapers in the U.S. Kathleen Parker has more in her nationally-syndicated column for Tribune Media Services.

There...may be a lesson buried in the bold type as to why increasing numbers of Americans have been finding alternative news sources, principally among blogs. Often, traditional news sources and the blogs reflect different realities, as with the story I tracked.

The tone of a majority of newspapers I viewed both Sunday and Monday was restrained to tepid. With some exceptions, headlines conveyed that familiar "yes, but" qualification. As in, "Yeah, sure, Iraq got a new constitution and took a giant stride toward independent self-rule, but life is still hell and, by the way, six American soldiers died."....Here, for instance, is The Baltimore Sun's Monday headline: "Arguments begin over count of Iraq vote." The Augusta Chronicle and The Orlando Sentinel chimed in with: "Disputes surround early tally" and "Disputes erupt on Iraq vote results," respectively. The Louisville Courier-Journal took the fire- 'n' -brimstone path: "Passing constitution won’t end Iraq’s woes."

There indeed may be arguments over the vote count. We know something about that in this country. And there may be some Sunnis protesting. That seems inevitable. We can easily predict that Iraq’s woes will continue for a while longer. But do such sidebar notes really convey the gist of the day? While a majority of newspapers, including The New York Times and the Washington Post, highlighted likely passage of the constitution on their front pages, others buried the story inside. Neither the Detroit News nor the Detroit Free Press ran a story on their front pages. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans skipped the referendum in favor of continuing post-hurricane stories on its front page. Understandable, though arguably "Honk if you’re sick of traffic" might have held a couple of days. As a footnote, papers that serve smaller communities tended to play the referendum story more prominently and positively than did larger papers.

Yesterday The Seattle Times managed to run a huge, five column-wide photo in its local news section of yet another outdoor art installation cum Iraq War protest, on the lawn of our state capitol in Olympia. You know, lots of fake grave markers to represent the American war dead in Iraq. Headlined "Pointing out the fallen," with a neat little, outright editorial in the caption, quoting activists saying "I want the war to end and the human cost of the war to be visible;" and "This is above politics - this is here to memorialize our kids who have fallen." Funny, I don't recall any tribute on the Capitol lawn in Olympia to the 300,000 Iraqis now buried in mass graves thanks to Saddam. Well, I guess they're not "visible," not being "pointed out," and certainly not "beyond politics."

I'm so sick of this utterly selective "celebrate misfortune" Iraq "news" meme, propogated by the, yes, liberal media. The soldiers that died went willingly, knew the risks, and sacrificed for a noble cause: trying to help the Iraqi people achieve the freedoms we take for granted, such as the right to engage in political speech and even third-rate political theater, without fear of the consequences so often dispensed in Saddam's brutal kleptocracy. Such as losing their jobs, or access to college for their children. Not to mention beheading, deadly gassing, or being buried alive.

While I still have a healthy respect for the op-ed sections of both Seattle dailies, and the real political diversity of views expressed in each; the local and national news sections of both papers, every day in many ways, have become a slag-heap of left-biased editorializing masquerading as reporting. That has made it very, very easy to cancel our household's one remaining newspaper subscription, to The Seattle Times. I'll continue to read both papers online, and a great many other sources as well. With instantaneous search capabilities for free media content worldwide on any desired topic, Google News means that once-loyal and choice-deprived subscribers now no longer have to pay for locally packaged print news content that's assembled like a day-late leftist blog with no links.

TECHNORATI TAGS: IRAQ, MEDIA BIAS, BLOGS

TO COMMENT: The regular "comment" feature is not in operation. E-mail comments to address under "Contact" on main page masthead, and I'll add them, here.

Tom Rekdal: Bertrand de Jouvenel once analogized politics to a game of poker from which no one may depart. No matter how high the stakes get--property, livelihood, religion, life itself--the game goes on. One may refuse to play, of course, as the Sunni Arabs did last January, but that only means losing bigger and faster; leaving the table is not an option.

In most democratic polities, the harshness of this struggle is mitigated by the fact that all of the players believe themselves to be, in some sense, one group. Without that sense of commonality, elections look more like civil war conducted by other means than like a method for deciding public issues. That seems to be where we still are in Iraq, and is likely to remain so as long as most voters are casting their ballots chiefly because opposing clerical leaders tell them they have a religious duty to do so.

The most hopeful aspect about the new Iraqi constitution is not the fact that it passed, nor that more Sunni Arabs voted, but that the American ambassador in Iraq and most of our senior military leaders seem to be keenly aware of the continuing political problem presented by Sunni Arab disaffection.

There will be new elections in December, and therefore more players at the bargaining table, so it is much too early to despair, but also far too late for happy talk about the inevitable march of democracy in the Middle East.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 19, 2005 10:04 AM