Breaking News: At Least, I Think It Is. Somewhere.

Riddle me this... when is an actual and legitimate news story not a news story? Answer... when said news story might cast this Administration and their dirty little war in a negative light, when said news story doesn't paint a glowing and rosy picture of life in Iraq, touting all of our "successes." So please, for those of you out there who still buy into the myth of the "liberal media," I think we can go ahead and finally lay that to rest once and for all.

Because the Administration is going to such great effort to talk up the successes and show just how wonderfully well the war in Iraq is going, a story that hit the wires at 5:04 EST today has simply gone by the boards. It seems that yet another Republican trying to have gay sex in a public bathroom is bigger news than 4 members of Congress nearly being killed in Iraq. Certainly you'd think it would warrant at the very least, a breaking news blurb somewhere on the networks. Yet, it's been strangely silent. And that silence, as they say, has been deafening.

Since our media has declined to cover the story, allow me to do their job for them.

4 members of Congress, Senators Richard Shelby (R-AL), Mel Martinez (R-FL), James Inhofe (R-OK) and Congressman Bud Cramer (D-AL) were nearly killed in the skies over Iraq. After viewing the conditions on the ground in Iraq, they boarded a plane in Baghdad bound for Amman, Jordan. Shortly after takeoff, 3 rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the C-130 cargo plane. In a telephone interview, Senator Shelby said the rockets were "near misses."

Said Shelby:

"I was looking out the window, a little small window, and I saw a shell or something. And then I see a flare. Our plane started maneuvering and changing directions and shaking all around."

The pilot made defensive maneuvers, successfully avoiding the rockets and safely ferried the members of Congress and their staffs to Amman, Jordan.

Congressman Cramer issued this statement:

"Our plane leaving Iraq was fired upon and it was a close call, but this is something that our men and women in combat face every day. The flight crew was outstanding and I credit them for the way they handled the situation. This should not take away from the purpose of this trip, which was to see first hand the operations in Iraq and thank our troops, many of them from North Alabama."

Amazing, isn't it? We're getting every sordid scrap of detail about Senator Larry Craig's (R-ID) sexual solicitation in an airport men's room and yet, a story like this one that pretty definitively shows that the surge has failed, that Iraq is far from stable and the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly isn't even a blip on the nightly news radar. Interesting coincidence, wouldn't you agree?

I personally would think that this story would be leading off every newscast all night long. Predictably though, because our media refuses to do their job and cowardice is rampant among our news outlets and journalists, those not owned by right-wing ideologues anyway, actual news items like this fail to make the cut. It's beyond ridiculous.

~Kevin S.