The Pro-Defeat Lobby in the MSM will be glad to know that they’re having an effect on troop morale:

“Are you going to bash us or what?” he finally said.

“I didn’t come all the way out here in August just to bash you guys,” I said. I felt some sympathy for his complaint, but was at the same time tired of hearing it. “I write what I see and hear, good and bad. You won’t get bad press from me unless you act badly.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You’ll be the first.”

I’m hardly the first. I know several journalists, political liberals as well as conservatives, who write it straight and don’t wallow in soldier-bashing. But the soldier-bashing that’s also out there sure does make an impression. Every journalist who embeds in Iraq must hear these complaints as often as I did, and I heard it daily.