Words Speak Louder Than Actions

Blaming the media less about deflecting ownership and more due to their own inability to see Iraq as an actual place, instead of as a square in their personal game of risk or some sort of k000l virtual reality game, and their own belief that words on the page are more important than actions on the ground. It's what allows MSNBC columnist media outsider Instapundit to write he's "tired of the war" and the thinking that allowed Andrew Sullivan to write:

The men and women in our armed forces did the hardest work. They deserve our immeasurable thanks. But we all played our part. By facing down the evil, the cowardly and the simply misguided, we have done a great good.

Of course by participating in the public discourse one plays a part in something, but typing away from one's basement does not involve "facing down" anything. Not a single person who opposed this war was "cowardly" as it takes no actual courage to send other people off to kill and die. One does not get to bask in the reflected bravery of those who are actually doing what you send them to do. There was nothing courageous about supporting a war which was supported by the US government and almost the entire punditocracy, and aside from helping to stifle debate and demonize people who quite sensibly opposed the war their contribution to their noble cause was precisely zero.