Up and listening to the Sunday news shows and catching up on my newspaper reading (which is to say, articles from the NYT and WaPo that I email to myself).

There's an interesting piece in NYT by Frank Rich discussing the soap opera-like aspects of the Iraq war. Part of his point is that the proliferation of 24-hour news has created an increase in the demand for Victim's Families...ratings always do well when the families are on.

For those of you who aren't news nerds, I should point out that NIGHTLINE began during the Iranian Hostage crisis of 1979/1980 and at first the Carter administration was psyched at the news coverage, thinking it would show the president in a positive light as compared to his democratic primary challenger Ted Kennedy. But in fact, the show had lots of hostage families on who connected emotionally with the audience which they were free to do, since they were NOT politicians. Carter looked ineffectual and lost big time.

So maybe the better comparison for Iraq isn't Vietnam but rather Iran.