"When I got to Baghdad, I barely recognized it," he began, comparing his just-completed trip to two others he made during and just after the battle to topple Saddam. "You have over 30,000 Iraqi cops and militiamen already on the job.

This is four months after major fighting stopped. Can you imagine that kind of gearing up in this country?

Not hard to imagine, Geraldo & Steve, when all the other jobs are gone. If someone bombed out my city, and the only work was to train for the police and preserve cultural sites (which is part of my field anyway, in a different sense) I'd go into the police. I think we'd get 30, 000 new applicants in Philadelphia, and I trust we'd be on the ground doing the job in four months. Why, it's downright unpatriotic to suggest we Americans wouldn't be up to the task.

Anyway, remember 9/11? Firefighters and police officers drove from all over the country to help out.

"To say that Iraq is being rebuilt is not true," answered Rivera. "Iraq is being built. There was no infrastructure before; we are doing it. I just think the good news is being underestimated and underreported."

Not quite true. There WAS infrastructure before we detroyed it. I guess it depends what you mean by "before."

If I hear one more person mock that "Mission Accomplished" banner beneath which President Bush thanked a shipload of sailors and Marines a few months back, I'm going to spit. That was a reference to the ouster of Saddam's regime, and that mission was indeed accomplished, apparently to the great chagrin of the American left. No one said what followed would be easy or cheap, and that's why the dripping-water torture of the cost and casualty stories is so infuriating.

Nice try, Steve. But then, why did the White House spokesman disavow knowledge of the banner, claiming that the Navy had decided to hang it, then blush when he had to admit that the President's people had brought the banner out? G.W. Bush KNEW the mission was not accomplished even then. You could hang a "mission accomplished" banner every single day (presumably SOMEONE accomplishes a mission every day), but unless it signals the end of the fighting, you're just blowing smoke.

And if you don't believe that the President did that whole thing as a publicity stunt, I've got an aircraft carrier to sell you. After all, if he really just wanted to thank the crew then why was there a full news crew flown out before him?

If you want to talk about the media duping the American People, how about that Jessica Lynch story? We've gotten distorted coverage both pro-Bush and Anti-Bush, but I think the majority has been pro. I understand that you don't agree, but to take Geraldo's word as Gospel is not a strong case.