Willy Pete and Friends

John Pike supplies a spot-on look at America's supposed white phosphorus scandal in Iraq, including this observation:

So with no direct evidence of an atrocity, and the United States using lawful weapons, why does most of the world now believe just the contrary? And make no mistake: This slowly emerged as a story here, but it has been a big story around the world.

I was confronted with these disparate realities when I was interviewed both by CNN and CNN International a few days after the story broke. Domestic CNN, airing here in the United States, was skeptical of the scandal. CNN International, airing before an audience that had already accepted the Italian documentary as fact, took a far less skeptical approach. The two CNNs -- one for the U.S. and one for everyone else -- embodied the separate realities now occupied by the United States and the rest of the world. We see ourselves as well intentioned. Much of the rest of the world does not.

This runs counter to the right-wing blogosphere/talk radio echo chamber which asserts that U.S. media outlets supply Americans with a politically motivated diet of anti-U.S., Iraq gloom-and-doom coverage.