AP Tries Valiantly to Rain on Iraq Election Parade

With The recent Iraq election turning out to be better than anyone had expected, the Associated Press has decided to do its best to drag everyone back down to reality. The only problem here for the AP is the reality they seek to push is their own.

One only has to go to the line under the headline of the story, "Iraq Constitution Seems Headed for Approval" to begin to see the AP's attempt to downplay any good whatsoever coming out of Iraq.

For the very next line, or sub-heading, reads: "Six American Soldiers Killed on Election Day, U.S. Military Says." While no one should seek to minimize the deaths of our fighting men and women, nor should they seek to unnecessarily glorify those deaths in a negative context. The AP makes sure that these six deaths are front and center to constrict whatever good has come out of Iraq. They even (the AP) managed to get the media-driven death march to 2000 inserted in the story:

"The most recent deaths brought to at least 1,976 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in 2003, according to an AP count."

Again, while important, it is not the story. The story here is the Iraqis voting to pass a landmark constitution, and prepare for country-wide elections on "Dec.15 for Iraqis to vote again, this time to elect a new parliament."

Throughout AP's story line, what seems to be most prevalent is what the minority Sunni's are feeling, and how despondent they are regarding the vote to pass the Constitution. But in reality, the Sunni's as a voting block are split, and could not stop the passage of the Constitution.

One needs to get to the very end of AP's story to know why the Sunni's were never a real threat to overturn the vote: "And Sunnis in both provinces may have split their votes after one major Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, came out in support of the constitution after amendments were written into the draft text Wednesday. Those amendments give Sunni Arabs the opportunity in the next parliament to try to bring about deeper changes in the constitution."

Yet the AP's article essentially focuses on the four major Sunni towns of Anbar, Salahuddin, Ninevah, and Diyala. There was hardly a word regarding the other major factions in Iraq, Shiites and Kurds.

I guess its only fitting that the AP should end a story that should expressly celebrate Iraq's next step towards autonomy with this droopy dog paragraph: "We know that there is a level of polarization," said Laith Kubba, the chief government spokesman. "Iraq is one big family, and we know that if a part of the family is not happy we cannot live in the same house.

Hopefully, the writers for AP will not be near any high places, or around any sharp objects.