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Drooling on the Pillow

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

The NYT Needs More Like John Burns 

John Burns is what a New York times reporter should be. Intelligent, resourceful, fearless and indefatigable. His dispatches from the Gulf War were comprehensive, exciting, insightful and fair.

Which is why I was so disappointed that his pre-election stories were so negative and gloomy. I respect him so much that they gave me pause and feelings of doubt.

Here he is after the election, being interviewed by PBS:

I must say, I’m sure in the chow halls across the
country today American troops were feeling a
tremendous sense of satisfaction after all that
they have gone through here. And I have also
no doubt that in the command centers, stories
written by people like myself that had been posted,
commanders would have taken a good deal of
satisfaction.

I think that we… those of us who took a rather
dire view of the possibilities of this election—not
the election itself, but what might happen—have
to say quite honestly that they got quite a lot about
this right, and we got quite a lot about it wrong.
They always said that we can do this. They were
fearful, of course, that there could be major
insurgent actions. And there were. They were
eight or nine suicide bombings in Baghdad alone.
But they also said we can get this done, and
you’ll see, there will be a very substantial
turnout. Well, they were right.


What more could you ask?

Via Tim Blair
Posted by: Sluggo / 10:57 AM
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