The Israeli-Lebanese War is Damn Good News

Israel’s retaliatory attack on Lebanon is the best thing to have happened since the invasion of Iraq – oh happy days for the media.

Instead of the same dull routine of suicide car bombings killing forty Iraqis at a time and the slowly mounting American casualties, now you have a real shooting war to cover, with tanks firing their thundering guns and spectacular explosions blasting hill tops and city blocks. You’ve got unscarred virgin buildings and city quarters blown to smithereens, not the same old crappy rubble blown up over and over again.

Correspondents are no longer holed up in the Green Zone. You can go wherever you want knowing you’ll get fair warning to put on your flak jacket before the camera begins to roll. You can stay in a hotel that always has hot water and electricity. You can have an ice cold Gold Star beer after the next rocket attack while you file your report on the dead and screaming wounded.

You’re finally away from that stinking green sewer of a Euphrates River and its bobbing headless corpses. You can go for a cool swim in the blue waters of the Mediterranean between bombardments. The blasted waste of Iraq is a distant memory as you sip tea in your hotel’s quiet garden in Jerusalem and talk with natives who know decent English.

Ratings are up as headlines tout news of World War III. Or is it IV? Studio pundits in their comfy chairs warn Armageddon could be days away. Tell your television audience they might not survive long enough to see film at 11:00. Larry King will have an exclusive interview with the Messiah.

As the Israeli-Lebanese border descends into stay-the-course progress, bringing true Bush democracy to the peoples of the region, we can only hope and pray that another administration success will emerge from it: a newly minted anchor for MSNBC.