There you are assuming that American journalism cares about Iraqis, a patently absurd proposition. American journalism promotes the number of American combat deaths as a way to disrespect President Bush.The trouble with promoting the story of terrorist attacks on a 1/30/05 election is that the casualties and the perpetrators would all be Iraqis. If they could blame the US for the casualties that would be one thing, but the election will be conducted under the aegis of the Iraqi Provisional Authority and the Coalition troops will get relatively little blame for any Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence concomitant to it.
And that is why, ultimately, this whole discussion is foolish for Americans to engage in - it is an Iraqi decision in the first place. Bush made the original decision in setting the date, but only the Iraqi Interim Authority could convince Bush to change it. And, IMHO, the Iraqis will come to the same conclusion as Congressman Billybob about that. The election will politically defeat the terrorists, in that any murders they commit on that day will ever after be counted as murders rather than fighting the coalition.
it has nothing to do with american journalism caring about anyone. if the civil war breaks out, that will be the reality that drops US public support for the iraqi war. if it doesn't happen, the journalistic spin won't matter.
sometime we here on FR think everything we see from the news media is a false reality promoted for their political purposes. of course, they do engage in that. but let's not ignore reality. the insurgency in iraq is real, has lasted longer then anyone predicted, the security situation in iraq is not the best, the performance of the iraqi police has been horrible. those facts are not an invention of the american media.