IT'S IRAQ, STUPID

Josh Marshall has a very good post up today re the disappearance of Iraq as an issue in the presidential campaign:

Politically, Kerry needs to ignore the commentators who will press him to come up with a twenty point plan that will immediately rectify the situation in Iraq. Yes, he needs to give an idea of what he'll do if and when he takes over. But the emphasis should be on the undeniable fact that though the way forward may be murky, the last person you want to lead the country down that foggy path is the guy who screwed everything up so badly in the first place. [emphasis mine]

As my friend John Judis noted recently, the key to winning an election is often simply a matter of bringing to the surface of the public consciousness what voters already really know. They know Iraq is a disaster. They know it's President Bush's fault.

It is unconscionable to me that the media has largely shoved the ongoing conflict in Iraq to the back burner or as filler for slow news days. Families of troops in the Middle East should be screaming bloody murder for more information from the professional press about current developments. The names of fallen troops should be listed EVERY DAY on every media outlet. Democratic strategists and progressive pundits alike should be attacking the administration on Iraq, Iraq, Iraq at every opportunity. We need to SEE THE IMAGES as we did during the Vietnam "police action" on television and in our newspapers and newsmagazines. If the professional media won't post them, then we bloggers need to find them wherever we can and fill the Internet with them until the mainstream catches up. (I guess I'm finally going to have to take a few minutes and figure out how to post photographs, huh?) We need to demand to see all those hospitals and schools we've supposedly reconstructed in Iraq. We need to demand an answer to why some of our troops still lack adequate body and vehicle armor. We should be talking about the primitive and dismal conditions under which our troops are conducting this war -- where is all the air-conditioned housing and hot meals they were supposed to be provided by Halliburton at astronomical costs?