Colorado Gov. Ritter Meets Iraqi Teenagers

In a highly illuminating interaction, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, a so-called moderate Democrat, took questions from a group of Iraqi teenagers touring the United States.  As reported in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Ritter was peppered with questions and comments that illustrated his veneer-thin understanding of events on the ground in Iraq.  The students correctly concluded that everything he knows is from "major media sources," which is to say the mainstream media.

Now, we'll stipulate that governors aren't expected to be fully versed in foreign affairs, however, we might expect that curiosity alone would encourage a more in depth analysis than that offered by our bi-coastal Times and network news.  Apparently not, and that's the problem.  If a governor with Mr. Ritter's obvious intelligence and acumen is only able to parrot mainstream media sound bytes on the war, we can only guess the depth of understanding--or lack thereof--of the rest of our state and federal elected officials.

And, where does the average American fall on that continuum?  Although more of us are broadening our spectrum of news sources, most typically complain about not having time.  That makes us doubt the true meaning of polls about the supposed large swaths of Americans who want us out of Iraq.

Back to the governor.  The students tried to get him to respond to the question about a U.S. pullout:  Would he support it if it meant more civilians would be killed--no direct response.  We're tempted to complicate matters by questioning Mr. Ritter's understanding of political and military history when he says that America's presence in Iraq has "greatly jeopardized" security there because it's such a facile and obtuse observation. 

Indeed, we're in a war that is finally starting to show results and provide a measure of hope for the nation's 25 million citizens--something they've never dreamed possible.  And the governor of Colorado ignorantly opines that we've jeopardized the Iraqis' security?  Is that what France said as we hit the beaches at Normandy?

Politics has a way of infecting collective thought in ways that create a kind of lemming-like group think which effectively relieves us of the charge of thinking for ourselves.  Let's hope that as real progress continues in Iraq our arm chair strategists such as Ritter begin digging a bit deeper into the situation so that they can rise above the din of the mainstream media's jaundiced view of the war.