It's a Historic Day in . . . Modesto?

I said the other day that not everything was the fault of the reporters.

Today's a perfect example. The reporters in Iraq have agreed to be away from home and family, to accept a certain degree of risk. Now they can't get air time because not enough stuff is blowing up.

Today is a major milestone in the development of Iraq as a modern demcracy. But the cable news networks aren't interested in the political side of the Iraq story. How very boring. They're being targeted, but none of those rounds have actually hit yet. Call us when a shell or rocket actually hits the parliment, until then, what's actually going on inside? Ho hum. We're busy.

Because today, just when we thought we were finally free of Scott Petersen, comes the sentencing.

Rather than just tell us what the sentencing decision was, it's an all day extravaganza of wallowing, live press conferences, looking back, analyses, and on and on and on.

That's not on the reporters. That's higher up the food chain, with the producers.

Wonder how things are going in that brand new democracy?

Well, at least we know they haven't been blown up yet.

Because that would be a story worth covering.