It is tried and tested that if you don’t like the message, you shoot the messenger. So it is that the Administration has embarked on a full-scale war on the media because everyone knows that if only the media said that Iraq was a bed of roses, the Iraqi people would be eating their bread with milk and honey the very next day. With that in mind, the surrogates have fanned out with ruthless efficiency. I have to admit that I admire their discipline. It is wonderfully orchestrated. First Donald Rumsfeld launched the first salvo on Sunday, then the Vice President and the President with a quick one two punch. Then they spread out on to the cable shows and sang the same tune. Nothing bad has ever happened in Iraq, just talk to the right Iraqis. Report the good news: the school openings, the bridge building, the candy distribution, and on and on. Talk to the Interior Minister about how the men in black are keeping the peace. Talk to the Vice President about the roses that the Iraqis are throwing at our troops. Just start talking to the right people and you will see the true Iraq, not the Iraq that you have conjured up with your IEDs and your death squads and your beheadings.

Here’s a sobering thought, courtesy George Orwell:

If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?

Why is the Administration attacking the media on the 3rd anniversary of the invasion? The conventional wisdom is that it will rally the base. I think it certainly will do that. But I also think it is also an indication that the Administration knows that the war in Iraq is lost. They are now in political damage control mode. I would expect that any decisions regarding the strategy in Iraq will primarily be decided by domestic political considerations. The war in Iraq now is about political survival at home. It is a tragedy that the people of Iraq are only props for political theater half a world away.