Focus on military families...

Highly recommended article on Newsweek by Eleanor Clift, The True Toll of War that raises some very thought provoking points when it comes to some of the political rhetoric that has arisen in the discussion on the war in Iraq. Clift suggests while the Democrats and the Republicans are battling over budgetary issues there is a human element to this that is being ignored:

At a breakfast last week a reporter asked House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer if Democrats were so wedded to the story line of Iraq as a failure that they risked embarrassment if it turns out to be a success.

Whatever is meant by success in Iraq, it would have to be pretty spectacular to justify the $1.6 trillion that the war could cost by 2009, according to a report by the Joint Economic congressional committee, which includes such hidden costs as the interest on borrowed money to pay for the war and health care for tens of thousands of wounded. Administration planners assumed a certain number of injured and some dead, but not this many—not in a war billed as a cakewalk with grateful Iraqis strewing the path with flowers and candy. For the 3,859 fallen soldiers and their families, the cost, as they say in that American Express commercial, is priceless. With the exception of Cindy Sheehan, who took her rage public after losing her son, these families are hidden from view, partly because of their own choice, but also because of administration policy banning pictures of returning coffins and a society that too often prefers to look away.

While I think the media could play a larger role, I appreciate the fact that they are mentioned as a part of the reason why the American public is not standing up more and demanding real action.