New Adventures in White House Stenography

President George W. Bush issued an interim report this week on the progress of the Iraqi government in meeting certain critical benchmarks.

The report, at best, showed a mixed result. Most accounts credited the Iraqis with meeting eight only of its 18 goals.

At worst—and there are major issues on this side of the ledger—the report reveals the continuing failure of the Iraqi legislators to set aside their sectarian differences and make the difficult decisions needed to support a broad-based and enduring Iraqi democracy.

But leave to a Tulsa blog to roll over and play dead on the latest Bush Administration policy failure. Instead of commenting one way or the other on this important topic, Tulsa Today this week merely printed the White House report without comment.

Apparently, the good folks over at Tulsa Today have never met a White House news release they didn't like. It's not the first time they served as lapdogs for the administration.

But for the rest of us—those of us who can actually manage an original thought every week or two—smiling and playing stenographer to the White House serves no useful purpose.

Here's our question: Why bother to publish a blog at all if you're only going to parrot the White House line on life-or-death matters as important as the Iraq war?