Ellen Knickmeyer

Yesterday, charges against another Marine officer accused of involvement in the Haditha "massacre" were dismissed. Today's Washington Post printed a story, but it was from Los Angeles Times writer Tony Perry, not a Post staffer. What's more, Perry's 10-paragraph story was printed on page A10 below-the-fold. [Check here for Perry's article* at the Times Web site.]

At least that was nine paragraphs longer than the "Around the Nation" brief that the June 5 print edition of the Post ran to relay news of the acquittal of another Haditha Marine:

Marine Acquitted in Iraq Case

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- A military jury acquitted Marine intelligence officer 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson of charges that he tried to help cover up the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha.

If you wanted to get depressed on the day after Christmas, you could always read Washington Post foreign correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer’s account of her deep guilt about escaping Iraq for a new posting in Egypt and trying to get her dog out of country ahead of poor Iraqi refugees whose lives were ruined by American occupation. Every Westerner in the story seems to be an Ugly American, and even as Knickmeyer recalled her return to Baghdad in October, the much quieter streets weren’t grounds for optimism: "our bureau seemed more than ever a medium-security prison....It seemed the silence of a dead city."

This is nothing new for Knickmeyer, who has a talent for talking down good news.