For the longest time, I have been one of those people who condemned the leftists in the media for putting the worst possible face on our war in Iraq. But I recently had an epiphany and came to the realization that it’s not just the usual suspects -- the New York Times, the Washington Post, the network anchors, CNN, the BBC -- who are entirely at fault. Fully doing its part to aid and abet our Islamic foes is the military brass holding down the cushy desk jobs at the Pentagon.

There’s no denying the liberal bias of the so-called mainstream media. I mean, when the L.A. Times can seriously ponder if there’s really a connection between Syria and Hezbollah, a rational person starts looking around for Alice and the White Rabbit. When the same paper corrects its multitude of factual and statistical mistakes on a daily basis, but never apologizes for running that trumped-up photo of the Palestinian girl grieving over her supposedly dead father, you wonder why the rag is still in business. And when the Times insists that Israel is killing Lebanese civilians without mentioning that the members of Hezbollah never wear uniforms and are therefore indistinguishable from non-combatants, you find yourself wondering if Osama bin Laden has bought himself a newspaper.

If the Bush administration weren’t composed entirely of people terrified of being chastised by the toothless tigers in the liberal media, they would have brought the editors of the New York and Los Angeles Times up on charges of treason for publishing classified material. But, unfortunately, we’re talking about politicians. Anybody who seriously expects courageous or even upstanding behavior from a bunch of pumped-up bureaucrats, whichever party they belong to, is seriously demented. But I, for one, have come to expect better of the military.

Instead, it seems like every time I turn around, the guys with all the fruit salad on their chests are bringing some group of grunts up on charges. In a war in which the enemy dresses like civilians -- even, on occasion, like civilian women -- the boneheads at the Pentagon are more concerned with being politically correct than they are with the safety and the morale of our troops.

Speaking of fruit salad, we all know that these Monday morning quarterbacks in Washington award themselves medals just for having three martini lunches and not spilling a drop, but how is it that after all this time, I have heard that only a single Medal of Honor has been bestowed for service in Iraq? Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith earned one the hard way; he died for it. If this were World War II, his face would be on a postage stamp or at least the cover of Life magazine, a movie bio would be in the works, and his name would be known from coast to coast. Little boys would want to grow up to be just like him.

Are we actually expected to believe this is a war without any other heroes? Yeah, right. Go tell it to the marines!