hen first I heard that a former colleague had been critically wounded in Baghdad, I was both saddened and angered. In a war which has already caused the death of more war correspondents than any other in which this nation's forces have served, it looked for a few days as if CBS's Kimberly Dozier, who had been badly wounded, might be added to the tally. Two of her technical team and the military driver were killed, outright. Her condition, according to reports from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, stable and improving and she's on her way home for treatment. When she was able to overcome the pain and sedation her very first question was, "what happened to the crew?" She was told the truth. In the days since the attack on Monday, many colleagues have spoken of her determination to cover the war and give us the stories, despite being fully aware that the danger was increasing all the while. She knows well the expression, "Feel the fear, and do it anyway."
I got to meet her about five years ago when I spent a week doing my talkshow out of the CBS bureau in London. I did a three hour daily stint and she was there just about all the time, making sure that I was welcome at the condemned building from which we broadcast (Honestly, the building is condemned, but that's a story for another time. It appears the owners want to tear it down for something better to be built in its stead, and the City of London says, no way, this is a landmark building. It must remain). Without her help the job of broadcasting would have been considerably more difficult. From then on I used to call on her for reports whenever there was news from England or from several battlefields in various parts of the Middle East. I always got the feeling that she was prepared to cover or uncover any significant story, as long as there was some danger attached to it. I think it was Dan Rather who reported recently that she kept a kayak in her apartment in Baghdad, hoping that one day officials would let her paddle the thing on the Tigris river.
Paul Douglas, the cameraman, and soundman James Brolan will be sorely missed. As for Kimberly, my thoughts and prayers are with her, and perhaps one day soon, I'll be calling on her for a report.
Let me borrow a quote which reflects my sentiments exactly, and it comes from the New York Times man, Steve Capus. He's the president of NBC News. He said, in an interview this week, "One thing I don't want to hear anymore, is people like Laura Ingraham spewing about us (i.e. journalists), not leaving our balconies in the Green Zone to cover what's really happening in Iraq."
In six months from now this war will have raged for as long as America's involvement in World War II! This war is so anonymous. We never show the caskets bringing the dead home for burial. Our President never... never... attends a funeral for any of our troops.
There is so much more to be said, but I wonder for how much longer the major news outlets will be able to keep the public's attention focused on what Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, the President and a few others have caused to happen.
There was a report by syndicated columnist Tim Ruttan that included the following stomach-churning quote from a man named Karl Zinsmeister, who happens to be the new chief domestic policy advisor to Mr.Bush. When he was a magazine editor he wrote the following in the National Review..."many of the journalists observable in this war theater are bursting with knee jerk suspicions and antagonisms for the warriors all around them. A significant number are whiny and appallingly soft...and show their discomfort clearly as they hide together in the press tents, fantasizing about expensive restaurants in Kuwait City, fondling keyboards and satellite phones with pale fingers, clinging to the world of  offices and tattle and chatter where they feel less effective, less testosterone deficient." Can you believe that a one-time, brief visit, from this right wing sycophant nut, gave him such insight...insight which, no doubt, has been passed on to his boss, GWB.
Mr. Zinsmeister, can you name a single one of these testosterone deficient reporters? And how would you know?
Karl baby, could you let us know how you were able to effectively explore their fantasies?
What did you do in Iraq?