The left has a bad month of June

Ralph Peters:

JUNE has been a miserable month for our left-wing media.

First, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi forced the alleged "massacre" at Haditha off Page One, frustrating media attempts to manufacture a sequel to Abu Ghraib. Then, President Bush made a midnight ride to Baghdad to put one very important pair of boots on the ground. He didn't hug the airport, either, but crossed the city to the Green Zone for a face-to-face with Iraq's new prime minister. It was a brave and inspiring act. And a worthy one.

Strategically wise, good for Iraqi and American morale - and, yes, politically savvy - the president's trip blew apart the media's effort to recover from their loss of Zarqawi.

It also shut down their bid to refocus our attention on the suicides of three poor, deprived terrorists at Guantanamo - thugs we're expected to mourn as victims of our inhumanity. Hate-America journalists just can't get a break these days.

But they're still trying. One cable-news anchor yesterday asked if Bush's visit to Iraq was a "publicity stunt." Her own network's correspondent shot that down, on-air. True reporters know a missile can kill a president as easily as a private.

The Gitmo suicide-trifecta was the real publicity stunt. This accurate statement should never have been retracted: It was an act of asymmetrical warfare. And every save-the-terrorists jerk behind a mike knows it in his or her shriveled bleeding heart.

The strategic momentum has shifted. Fighting a terrorist movement takes time, sometimes a frustrating amount of it. But Bush's trip drove home some undeniable facts:

* The American president can go to Baghdad. And our enemies can't stop him. And the White House didn't black out news of this visit until the prez was wheels-up for home; word broke while he was still in the Green Zone. One big Bronx cheer for the bad guys - for whom Bush's visit was a humiliation.

...

There is more. The trip is tangible proof that al Qaeda is losing. If al Qaeda was winning, bin Laden and Zawahiri would be making a trip to Baghdad to meet with the new calphite that was being set up to rule the world. Instead a democratically elected government is in place where every vote cast was a vote against al Qaeda which wanted none cast. Al Qaeda has been reduced to the conck roach status it deserves. It may still be able to make a mess, but it can't carry off the country. As Peters goes on to point out, al Qaeda's ability to do anything in Iraq is being seriously degraded, by exploitation of the evidence gathered at Zarqawis house and in subsequent raids.