Anyone following the Michelle Malkin/Pulitzer Prize Photos Controversy?

[AnnInLa]

Reality bites: The right-wing smear on photojournalists

snip

Now, the right-wing pajama brigade is in full attack mode against the Pulitzer Prize awarded this week to 11 photojournalists working for the Associated Press, including our friend and Philadelphia Daily News colleague, Jim MacMillan. These are people of remarkable bravery -- dodging bullets and crawling through slime on a regular basis for nothing more than the public's ability to see war as it really is fought.

The AP's crime? In so many words, they are guilty of showing the conflict in Iraq the way that it is, and not the way that the conservative blogosphere wishes that it were. The right wants those pictures of rose pedals and liberation parades that Dick Cheney promised them three years ago, and now they're mad they didn't get them.

Slate.com has a good round-up (third item -- scroll down) of the conservative complainers. The usual suspects include our favorite Daily News op-ed contributor, Michelle Malkin, and the good people at Powerline, which calls it "The Pulitzer Prize for Felony Murder."

There are two main objections. To sum them up, they claim the AP was aiding the enemy when one of its photographers, who has sources in the anti-U.S. insurgency, went to a rally and captured a shot of insurgents shooting two Iraqi election workers. The other is general, that too many of the pictures are "pro-insurgent" or that none of them depict "heroic" actions by American troops. Writes Powerline:

The Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Associated Press for work based on complicity with murderers and enemies of the United States at war is a disgrace.

No, it's not. Quite the contrary, the AP is doing exactly the job that any good American citizen should want from them: Bringing the reality of war back home -- as much as that's possible -- so that American voters can make informed choices in our democracy (last time we checked) about our leaders and what they should be doing in the Persian Gulf.

If reality bites, don't blame them.

more at http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/001686.html

[lebkuchen]

1. When Iraqis get massacred, RWers rationalize and say, "War is hell."

When it's Americans getting killed, the aftermath of Bush's Folly becomes a deep dark family secret nobody is supposed to talk about.

[TahitiNut]

2. "Perception is reality."

Faced with an epistemological truism, the Fascist Reich oppressively controls perceptions and abdicates responsibility for the reality of their acts.

[no_to_war_economy]

3. i cant stand how this discusssion is buried in America

not just the Pulitzer Prize pictures discussion but the entire Iraq war discussion

" fat lazy stupid " comes to mind when I think of the American sheeople

AP pics here .. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2005/breaking-news-photography/works/

[Mizmoon]

4. Every one of those images is deeply moving

the photogs are very brave.
You could not pay me enough to go over there.

[RubyDuby in GA]

7. I've run out of words to describe how it feels......

These need to be on the front page of every newspaper everyday until this stupid country wakes up from its oil-induced stupor.
Did you ever think in your lifetime that you would one day be ashamed to be an American?

The one photo that strikes me the most is the one of the two small children. An entire generation of people will grow up hating us for what has been done to their country and their families in our name.

There are no words that can come close to describing how devastatingly terrible this war is for every single person on this planet.

:cry:

[xchrom]

5. malkin likes to see people being killed in brutal ways.

and then letting america being glorified for the act.

there's probably a scientific term for her warped obssesion -- but pervert is what i'll call it.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Malkin is such a pathetic piece of trash that I cannot give what she says

the slightest credibility.
What can one say about an Asian American who comes out in favor of the Japanese internment camps of WWII? She is obviously a self-loathing Asian-American. Like an abused wife or an abused child, she cleaves to her abuser hoping to win their approval.

[Catamount]

8. Thank you , these photos are true depictions of the horrors of this....

unjustified war. They should be plastered over those gigantic billboards instead of the *.
I love our troops (want them home asap) and feel so sad for the poor people of Iraq.

[underpants]

9. "Why won't they report good news?" I don't know why don't YOU?

I love when Fox or any of the talking heads complain and whine about that. I am sure there are SOME inspiring stories out there why don't they get one of their reporters to leave the hotel bar and find one?