It was all over the media yesterday:
“Soldiers Tell Gates They Back Surge”
CNN TV reported that “a small but representative sample” of troops met with Gates and unanimously urged him to send more troops, presenting this view as a contrast to the views of US commanders in Iraq, who oppose such a surge and told Gates so the day before.
Where did the reporters and news readers get the idea that the 15 soldiers that Gates had breakfast with were representative of the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq?
According to the transcript of a news conference posted on the Pentagon’s website, an unidentified reporter asked the following question of Gates:
Secretary Gates, this morning you met with a small but representative group of senior enlisted U.S. soldiers. And you asked them whether they thought, whether they thought, more U.S. troops should be sent to Iraq and to Baghdad, and they seemed to indicate that they could use the help. How will that influence your thinking about the possible options as you look at the way ahead?
Gates didn’t even need to respond to this, the “reporter” did his work for him. Instead, he talked about how great it is that the soldiers support the mission.
This “reporter,” and the others who repeated his assertion that 15 hand-picked soldiers were representative of the 150,000 in Iraq have no business calling themselves journalists. At best, they are acting like second-rate press secretaries.