If you don't listen very closely to this NPR story about "opposition to the Iraq occupation" you might feel a little down, a bit discouraged, when you're done because it sure does make it seem as if they don't like us, a lot.

But listen more closely. Did you catch who they picked? In order:

• An Iraqi colonel (well, former Iraqi colonel, one of the reasons he's pissed is we felt we had to disarm and disband the army. We do have a lot of nerve you see, taking away the guns of a defeated combat force and sending all their ideologically comitted members home. But I digress...)
• The wife of a man who was a part of Uday's personal bodyguard detail (oh, yes, dear, absolutely your husband had no choice. And if you're willing to believe that, I imagine you also believed he stayed a good Muslim and a faithful husband around what nearly everyone agrees was one of the most depraved and decadent men to walk across the world's stage in a good long time. It never ceases to amaze me what some women will insist on believing just so they can keep a nice house.)
• The leader of a rural tribe whose members were thought so loyal they were recruited into the Republican guard.

"Tell me Mr. Fallwell, just what do you think of Hillary Clinton?"

"If you have some time, Ms. Streisand, could you talk a few minutes about your opinion of the Bush administration?"

I'm not saying that Iraqis don't dislike our occupation of their country. I would be quite surprised to find if any "regular" Iraqi liked it one little bit. But by picking such obviously and totally biased subjects for this story I can't help but wonder what, exactly, Ann Garrels really hoped to accomplish?

I don't think any journalist is actually capable of outright sedition, the few who are smart enough to understand the term covet their careers too highly. Far more likely, I'll wager, these were people who were wandering near the al-Rashid hotel (because you know it's just too hot to walk around this damned city. The listeners back home will never know where they came from anyway. You know most can't read a map) and were willing to have a microphone stuck in their face by an Infidel too old to still work her original TV news beat.