Losing the Peace, Pt. 1

Jessica's Well has posted two retoactively hilarious pieces from Life in 1946 about how the U.S was "losing the victory in Europe." The main article was written by the eminent novelist John Dos Passos (whose journey from far left to hard right is one of the more stunning and fascinating ideological shifts among major 20th century writers) and is chock full of doom and gloom.

Whether you were for or against the invasion of Iraq (I was against it), the Life stories are well worth reading and they do indeed provide sly commentary on how the press is dealing with the situation in postwar Iraq. While it's not clear that most of the media was against the war (at least at the time it started), there's every reason to believe that coverage is biased in favor of bad news over good. This is simply the foreign correspondent's equivalent of the old "if it bleeds, it leads" formula. Explosions make for better TV and stories than do shots of what, electric generators being rebuilt.

[Link via Instapundit]