Reading the Times op-ed I couldn’t help but flashback to the morning CNN got booted out of Baghdad a few weeks ago. Nic Robertson and Rym Brahimi were greated as heroes at the Jordanian border by CNN execs, probably because CNN people were in fear that the journalists would face some awful Iraqi-inflicted fate before they hit the border. Of course, that’s not what viewers were told. Presumably the greatest threat to them was American shocking and awing. Viewers watching the extended coverage of the Jordanian entrance got to hear the producer who had been in Baghdad with them going on about the importance of giving equal time to both sides, as if the U.S. and Iraq were somehow equal players in the realm of free media (in fact, she went on about how the Iraqis didn’t use CNN to feed enough propaganda, compared to the U.S.). She, of course, was saying much of it because she wanted Disinfo Guy to let them back in. There are ways of doing that without being so fundamentally and blatantly dishonest, however.