Funny, But We're Not Hearing This from the LWM

Michael Graham just returned from Iraq:

I just spent a week in Iraq and Kuwait cultivating a skill that I, as a talk-show host, have found nearly impossible to master: shutting up.

Turns out, it was easier than I thought, at least in Iraq. When you're listening to a 20-year-old kid from Indiana tell how he earned his second Purple Heart, speechlessness is the natural reaction.

I was there as part of the much-maligned "Truth Tour" organized by Move America Forward, a conservative group based in California. According to reports in the mainstream media, I was part of a "propaganda" junket paid for by the Pentagon to buy some desperately needed positive coverage of the unwinnable military quagmire. All I can say is: If this was a junket, it was the worst-run junket in the history of public relations.

My radio station and I had to pay all my expenses, I slept on a bare cot in a tent in the desert, and at some locations the only available "food" (and I use that term under protest) were MREs — which stands for "Meals Ready to Eat...assuming you've already eaten both shoes and most of your undergarments."

This alleged "junket" failed in another way, too. The Pentagon didn't control what went out over the airwaves. Then again, neither did I. I left it all up to the soldiers.

Read the whole thing if you want to know what's really going on over there.