Rush Limbaugh, I think it was, talked about "water cooler news", which is what happens the day after news reports on MSM. People talk about news at the office. Before widespread alternative media the only source of information was MSM, and that, of course, meant that liberals in media controlled the gate, so to speak. The few alternatives were easily ridiculed or falsely discredited by MSM talking heads.
Now, a whole new "army" of persons informed by alternative media stand at the cooler with their old-fashioned MSM colleagues. Water cooler news now has other viewpoints, and when facts countering MSM bias are discussed, doubt about MSM reliability begin. MSM influence was and is on the downward spiral, and its refusal to change adds to its ruinous inertia.
"The Public" is less informed that those who frequent the blogosphere and sites like Free Republic, that's true. But it is not as propagandized as it used to be. And while support for the Iraqi war has dwindled, support for the national defense has not.
The challenge for the President is to clearly demonstrate the connection between Iraq and radical Islamism, and how a democracy in that region will dissipate Islamist power throughout the world. That is the truth about the Iraq war. Islamists crashed into the World Trade Center on 9-11 starting this war. It is radical Islamism that we seek to defeat, not a nation or a people, and Iraq is the front in that war.
The people of Iraq are committed to liberty; in Sunni areas mainly are terrorists killing civilians, with prosperity returning to (non-Sunni) areas. Satellite dishes are popping up, cell phones are everywhere, automobile traffic is swelling.
Iraqis themselves are now patrolling city streets. They are finding and apprehending or killing the enemies of their fledgling nation, both solo and with U.S. personnel. They only need more time to consolidate the recovery and rebuilding of everything Ba'athists destroyed while ruling Iraq.
We are winning at that front in the war on terror, and to abandon it, or to impair victory with an announcement to our enemies that we will abandon it on a certain future date, as liberals wish us to do, is patently stupid. It is as if liberals do not want the U.S. to be victorious.
These are the facts we, the public, need to discuss at the water cooler.
Do you think we could also be training mujahadeen we will eventually have to fight?