A good compedium of Congressional comments of the past few days. It is dominated by quotes from those who "slam plan", quoting only one of the supporters and reporting the position of another without any further supporting evidence.

This news article presents well sourced skepticism on the part of members of Congress of any new plan to send more troops to Iraq. While it is light on identifying any who aren't skeptical, it is a solid story on an evolving situation.

This is a report about growing bipartisan opposition in Congress to president Bush's anticipated decision to send more troops to Iraq in what the administration is calling a "surge" in troop strength. That term, as a piece of political rhetoric appears to have been remarkably ineffective in penetrating medial and political discourse.

Anne Flaherty does a good job in her lead graf, easing readers into the developing Congressional war over the war in Iraq. She does a good and even-handed job of supplying quotes from both Republicans and Democrats. The story also provides information about President George W. Bush's choices as military commanders for the war in Iraq.

The actual reporter is AP's staff writer covering the White House Deb Riechmann, who won the White House Correspondent's 2006 Merriman Smith award for being the first to report on John Roberts being nominated to associate Justice of the Supreme Court. What happened there shows the kind of shading that is evident in this Iraq coverage as well. Reichmann got the Roberts story on deadline, turning out her piece by 19:42 on 7-19-05, just 10 minutes into the 5:30 PM TV news shows, and in time for the national airings at 6:30. Her story then hit the highlights, but also left out reference to numerous Reagan administration blunders, like the $125 billion Savings and Loan bail out, where Roberts was WH counsel at the time. It also left ... More »