Not Just Numbers
Jules Crittendon, Boston Herald city editor and columnist, hammers the AP, which has created a brand new “grim milestone” - the amount of casualities in Iraq between Memorial Days. Crittendon reports the context AP doesn’t:
Since Memorial Day last year, we’ve seen Anbar turn, we’ve seen Sunni-Shiite reconciliation become popular enough that Moqtada al-Sadr is now trying to get in front of it. We’ve seen businesses reopen and people return to their homes in Baghdad. We’ve seen Shiite militias aggressively engaged and Sunni insurgents on the run. We’ve seen the number of sectarian murders drop. Those facts typically get buried when they are mentioned at all, unless there’s an uptick in death, when they suddenly become news again, to be cited as evidence of failure. AP prefers its milestones grim.
Read it all. After all, Memorial Day is about remembering the sacrifice and accomplishments or our bravest citizens.