The New Face Of Journalism [Mar 25, 2003]

Since the war to liberate Iraq from a corrupt, evil regime began slightly fewer than eight days ago, I've done 75 radio interviews, all on Clear Channel stations, about the topic dearest to my heart. Over and over again, while also emphasizing that George W. Bush is the great Liberator of the unwashed quite possibly sent by the Star Creator to save humanity, I've made the point that bloggers are changing the face of blogging, and therefore journalism. I've been getting nearly 800,000 hits a day since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, or, as I call it, Operation Iraqi Freedom. My message is finally getting through.

This war is complicated, and I fear that traditional media aren't up to the task of explaining its complex complexities. The embedded reporters are plagued by combat inexperience, night blindness, or, in the case of the turncoat Brits, anti-American Fifth Column traitor tendencies. Not so us bloggers. We see through the muck that fills our TV and computer screens as we monitor them obsessively, not "pathetically," as our detractors in the old media say, 24 hours a day. We see what no one else can, because no one else is looking in the same places that we are. Our minds are very sharp pencils, and we're poking the world in the collective eye.

Just look at all the ground broken, on this site alone, since the war began:

--I was the first writer, by nearly 20 seconds, to declare the anti-war movement completely bankrupt because of the stupid actions of a small radical fringe group in San Francisco. Subsuquently, I beat everyone to the gym by accurately suggesting that American combat deaths are quite possibly the fault of anti-war protesters.

--Yesterday, no one else dared touch the story that the Turks may be whipping up sandstorms to help the Russians secretly funnel weapons to Saddam Hussein.

--As far back as last October, I was calling Jacques Chirac "the Rasputin Of The Seine, with halitosis." Imagine my non-surprise, then, when the French newspaper Le Monde reported over the weekend that Chirac is seeing a breath doctor. In Bergen-Belsen!

--Why, I ask you, haven't the mainstream media been providing us with a line-by-line analysis of every single one of Tony Blair's speeches? Because they know I did it first.

--Last Friday, I wrote that Saddam Hussein had done something bad to someone at some time in the past, and that the time for debate was over. This is war, I said. Our enemies can do no right, and we no wrong. Except for Shepherd Smith, the lack of moral courage on the part of journalists continues to stun me.

--At 1:37 PM yesterday, I reported, just by guessing, that Iraqis weren't fighting by traditional rules of war. "They may use dogs as human shields," I wrote. Sure enough, I was more or less correct, and by the end of the afternoon, my scoop had roared across the globe like a cartoon jet that turns into an eagle.

--Finally, only I am able to say, without qualms or even evidence, that the Iraqis are savage ape-monsters who don't understand law, hygiene, and, in many cases, English.

There you have it, my Beagles. Blogs. The new newspapers. You read it here first. Or at least I hope you did.

Now then: Keep reading below. I have new guest commentaries. The first is from Joel Turnipseed, who caught a virulent Gulf War memoir fever and wrote an excellent book called Baghdad Express, which can be purchased here. I must say that Joel's book makes an excellent companion to my own book, Beneath the Axis of Evil, which is only $10 here.

So Joel's is the first commentary. The second is by a solider friend of mine who's actually still in the military but must remain anonymous because, well, he's in the military. Read Joel, and then the other guy. And tune in tomorrow for more red-hot late-breaking sexy blog action!