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Think your summer plans are exciting? Well porn legend turned Marine corporal turned conservative activist Matt Sanchez has you beat. Eschewing the safety of comparatively calmer destinations (Eastern Chad, for instance?), Sanchez has traveled to a certain far-away quagmire of death squads, roadside bombs and internecine warfare–namely Iraq.
Not satisfied with American media coverage of the Mess-O-Potamia, Sanchez is attempting to set the record straight, embedding himself with an American military unit and posting daily to a blog. Sanchez’s work makes for some interesting reading, and Bwog wishes the Corporal luck in returning to America safely.
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40 Comments
@not from NYT http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2664372.ece
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-schwartz/the-iraqi-parliament-vote_b_52656.html
@god, commenters y’all are making Sanchez look like the level-headed one. that’s impressive.
“liberal bias” people – check the NYT for coverage of the Iraqi oil workers’ strike or the recent parliamentary vote on US withdrawal – just to name current events. then get back to us on how the NYT only reports anti-American spin from Iraq…
@I'd like to repeat my question and ask why reporting 20 casualties is misleading. Considering a lot of soldiers are unfortunately coming back missing limbs, I don’t think it’s fair to interpret the term “casualty” as referring to “light scratches” as it was by another poster.
Do all casualties refer to people who have been severely injured? No, there are those with “light scratches.” At the same time, there are casualties that refer to a death. The term is ambiguous yes, but unless Matt wants each reporter to catalog the injuries (“2 soldiers suffered broken legs, 1 suffered a punctured lung, etc…), rejecting the term all together seems silly.
I hope commenters spend more time discussing this rather than making racist comments, which gives the right fodder for associating such thought with the left.
@El racisto I don’t think anyone makes any associations based off of what they read on the fucking BWOG
@Anonymous Did I read that right? Was Sanchez railing against the liberal bias of the… Wall Street Journal? Can’t wait for his next blog post when he takes those commie pinko hippies at Human Events to task.
@Matt Sanchez http://pajamasmedia.com/
@Senor Senor Sanchez, why do you enjoy touting your superior bickering abilities to a bunch of 20-year-olds? Aren’t you well into your 30s? Do you really want to be known as the pest who ruined the reputation of School of General Studies?
@KER Posters,
It may be summer, but verbal diarrhea will still not be tolerated.
Thank you.
@Bias in the media http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6763205.stm
@bias Ideally ya but ‘fair’ is more realistic than ‘unbiased’. foxnews is unfair, for example. if the new york times slips in some left-wing bias, it’s much less blatant. i wish matt the best but cringe to think of him ‘debunking’ anything.
@stay safe, matt I disagree with your politics, but I wish you the very very best.
@I would think that someone with a *PRESS PASS* and someone who has “written for” numerous publications (op-eds are now considered writing for a newspaper?) would understand the difference between casualties and fatalities. I guess I would be horribly mistaken. Nevertheless:
casualty – one who is injured or killed in an accident or disaster.
fatality – A death resulting from an accident or a disaster.
Also, any “blogger” who considers himself part of “the media” ought to shut his mouth with some big ole hardcock pie…. But I guess you’ve already done that.
@hmmm even if there is a left-wing bias in the mainstream media, which there isn’t, even the new york times was months behind the sectarian conflict embedded in the country, what makes matt’s perspective better? he may be too close to the action to see the larger picture, or if he’s been brainwashed or even just happens to believe the ‘mission’ is succeeding, his perspective will only represent the far opposite side of the msm’s.
and the fact remains that most of the soldiers over there probably didn’t have much of a choice, and have been serving two or three perilous tours more than what they expected and is traditionally expected.
@Left-Wing Bias “even if there is a left-wing bias in the mainstream media, which there isn’t”
Somebody clearly has not read the piece the New York Times’ Public Editor wrote on leftwing bias in the New York Times in 2004, in which the Times itself chronicled its bias. [ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E7D8173DF936A15754C0A9629C8B63 ] I’d suggest reading it before you claim that the mainstream media doesn’t have a liberal bias. After all, the New York Times is the height of the mainstream media (we’re not talking about the Enquirer here), and, if their public editor will admit his paper’s bias, I think that’s a little more credible then an unnamed bwog poster who claims that “there isn’t”.
That said, I think Matt is right to point out the number who died vs. the number of people that are listed as casualties. While casaulties can be injured or killed, when a paper only gives that term and doesn’t specify a death toll, people assume the worst. When you read about a plane crash that had over 100 casualties, you don’t stop to say “hmmm, I wonder how many of those just had light scratches.” Similarly, with a suicide bombing, people tend to assume the worst. By listing “20 casualties”, then, the paper can be technically accurate and still be incredibly deceiving. And that is precisely bias. Bias is something that colors a truth, not an outright falsehood or lie.
Finally, I’m amazed by comments like #16 which pretty clearly smack of more than a touch of racist. Warning someone of hispanic descent to be careful because they could lose their “sombrero”, among other (worse) comments is disgusting. Whatever you think of Matt, and whatever else he has done that can be legitimately discussed, he still served in the U.S. military. Anybody who wears the American uniform and volunteers to go into harms way for the country is just as, if not more, American as any student here. Directing comments at somebody because of their race is unacceptable at Columbia. Grow up and become a human being, please. The rest of us can do without your posts until then.
@Stupid An admitted bias doesn’t mean the world’s media is controlled by a vast-right-wing-conpiracy/liberal media/zionist bankers, it just means that people instead of robots are running the damn things. Bias, while it can always be acknowledged, can almost never really be changed. This, however, can be contrasted to foxnews, which is so hilariously forthright in conscious manipulation that it becomes parody of itself.
P.S. when someone makes stupid inflammatory comments that probably not even the poster agrees with, the proper thing to do is ignore their pleas for attention or email the editor and ask for an IP banning.
kthxbye
@Stupider So a bias can almost never be changed. Way to try to better yourself and the world around you.
By countering left-wing biased news examples with right-wing biased news examples you accomplish nothing except dividing people.
@Excuse me Of course bias can be changed, but if there’s no rational reason to do so (i.e., you actually believe in the principles of the left) why would you?
And my comparison was made to show there is no comparison. Fox News is NOT the New York Times. One is an acceptable level of bias and one is not.
@Confused Isn’t news reporting supposed to be unbiased?
At least, good news reporting?
@"Casualties?" I was a bit confused when reading Sanchez’s blog, specifically by his posting on June 15, 2007 “Muir Still Gets It.”
“A suicide bomber in Fallujah detonates his vest at a police check point. One person dies, yet the mainstream media receives reports of over 20 casualties? Who would possibly want to inflate the amount of victims?”
How are those 2 reports contradictory? “Casualty” does not necessarily suggest that a person has been killed. He or she might have suffered wounds or sickness. Although I’m not ruling out the possibility that the number of casualties could have been inflated, what’s Sanchez’s problem with the report?
@McFister Sanchez’s blog is sub-Geraldo travelogue. Do they give these press passes out to just anybody? Or just anybody who will spin the stories the ‘right’ way?
@Dear Matt Please don’t die. Stay safe.
@ARTISTE This entire blog of yours is very Team America.
@come on no wonder Baghdad is a mess, the cops are all strippers first, law enforcement second
@Anonymous The luxury of ignorance.
It takes an enormous amount of arrogance to proclaim an effort a failure when you have no knowledge of this conflict except for the bits and pieces you read in the news.
Given what and how the news is reported, I can understand how many would prefer to remain in blissless bubble of resistance, but the truth is that most Americans, especially our educated elite are not getting the real story on Iraq.
@jihad-face Question: who here proclaimed the effort a failure? Read the page again. No one. The closest word is “quagmire,” which does not mean “failure” according to my thesaurus. For someone who’s been going to school for a long time, you sure do display a dizzying lack of logical reasoning and reading comprehension.
Don’t you think people would be more willing to take you seriously if you didn’t act like you were being persecuted every time you opened your mouth? Ever tried calmly explaining yourself?
If you want to tell “the truth” about Iraq as you see it from the ground, maybe you should just do it and stop pretending you’re the second coming of Ann Coulter. Some of the experiences on your site are fascinating to read. Give us more of those, not political cartoons.
I’d love the “real story” on Iraq, but I somehow doubt you’re capable of delivering. I hope you prove me wrong.
Also, since comments are moderated on your blog, I’ll post it here: you state that the acronym “MSM” stands for “Mainstream Press.” Way to put that elite education to use, champ. Stick it to Eric Foner good!
@Interesting I’m surprised they allow someone with a relatively well-known, gay, pornographic film to embed in an American military unit. But I guess as long as they don’t ask about it…how’s aboot you report that ‘failure’ of American policy St. Matthew?
@rjt Come on man don’t you know anything he has exorcised the demons and no longer has the gay!!!
@Matt Sanchez I have a press pass, I’m officially sponsored, I have secret clearance. I don’t understand why would they deny me?
@Oh yeah Of course, I forgot. Sorry. I didn’t realize we were being purposefully obtuse. Weee, isn’t this fun?
@ARTISTE I think the phrase you’re looking for is
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb119/bwogphotoshop/mission-accomplished.jpg
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@NOOOO! Save our sucio!
Be careful senor, may dios be with you while you maintain the fridges of el norte–and geeve the pink ones your twelve inches of uncut relief
@okay okay but What about Felipe Tarud?