I Just Have One Quick Question for you, Mr. Cheney

"I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think are accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."
--Vice President Dick Cheney, on CBS's Face the Nation, with Bob Schieffer, March 19, 2006

It's just a real quick question, Mr. Vice President. I'm just a lowly Marine mom with several loved ones fighting in your war, out here in the heartland of Texas. I know you're a busy man, so I just have one quick question.

If, as you say, it's true that things are going very, very well in Iraq and that the only reason we dumb Americans can't get it through our thick skulls is because of the big bad liberal news media which persists in showing only bad news, only a daily litany of bombings and beheadings and assassinations and American troop death counts and so forth…If the big bad liberal news media would just COOPERATE with the administration and show all the great nation-building that's going on over in Iraq, all the GOOD NEWS, and all the terrific things that are happening over there, and all the happy Iraqi people so proud of the Americans for liberating them…

(By the way...This IS the same media that couldn't wait to televise, with orgiastic enthusiasm, the "shock and awe" of the early days of the war? The same media who made a media god out of Donald Rumsfeld? The same media that flooded the air waves and op-ed pages with pro-war editorials in the days leading up to and into the war...isn't it? I just want to make sure we're talking about the VERY SAME MEDIA.)

Anyway, my question is…If things are really so good over there now, then why don't YOU go visit?

I mean, REALLY visit. You know. Something...more substantive...than a five-hour fly-by, where you only had time for a quick photo-op and a fast interview with a friendly American journalist before hurrying back to the nice safe White House.

I'm talking about a state visit. One which is actually ANNOUNCED beforehand. One with all the pomp and circumstance your administration is so proud of. One with LOTS AND LOTS OF FLAGS FLYING IN THE BACKGROUND.

Perhaps something, oh, out of doors? Something on a GRANDSTAND, maybe, since you're so good at well, grandstanding. Something where you don't have to wear a FLAK JACKET to walk down the street. If, of course, you actually DID walk down the street.

Or if you are too busy, then how about the president? He's real good at this sort of showy show of foreign diplomacy. He just loved India. How about a big state visit from the president, where he can travel all over the great nation of Iraq that he helped to liberate? Go down a rope line in Baghdad shaking hands with all the grateful, happy Iraqis?

Or Condoleeza Rice? Something where she could do Secretary of State-y kinds of things like, oh, maybe tour a famous mosque.

Or shop at a public marketplace.

Or even, our esteemed Secretary of Defense? He's good at visiting the troops for flashy 24-hour unannounced visits, where he stops in at heavily fortified and well-established bases with huge chow halls that make real good photo ops.

How about if, instead, maybe he accompanied some of the Marines, like my son, who go on daily, deadly patrols in some of the insurgent-infested neighborhoods in the Sunni triangle? He could see for himself what a REAL war is like. Think what great media coverage THAT would be!

I just want to know that if things are so peachy-keen over there in Iraq right now, and we would know this if only the American media was doing its job and reporting it correctly, like Bob Woodruff did, then why don't you set us straight, there, Mr. Vice President?

Take us on a nice walk down Iraqi city streets and let us see for ourselves what you're so dead-level certain of. Guaranteed, there would be media coverage for THAT, wouldn't there?

Because, see, the fact that nobody in the administration will spend more than one quick day in only heavily-fortified areas, and are so careful never to announce their arrival, NOT EVEN TO THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT…it gives the impression that the security situation over there is absolutely as bad as the media has been reporting all along.

I know impressions are important to you. You want us to think the right things about your war. So why don't you just SHOW US the war you know and love?

I'm just asking.