Did you know U.S. soldiers in Iraq are being electrocuted by "friendlies"?

Has this been front-page news that I just missed somehow? 12 soldiers in Iraq electrocuted in during showers in their own barracks due to faulty wiring? Faulty wiring that was identified several years ago that apparently was put on low priority? With family members earlier being told that the victim had taken a small electrical appliance into the shower? With the possibility that it’s the former subsidiary of Cheney’s old company that is responsible for this?

Under normal circumstances, this would be major-headline front-page news. Anybody who has followed American news over the years knows it’s a sensational story just by the nature of it: “Soldiers being executed in showers in Iraq. Faulty wiring blamed.” Arguably, it would not, in theory, deserve to be a sensational story any more than the now-ignored soldiers who get cut down by IEDs or snipers. But the fact is, in our culture of journalism, a substantial number of American soldiers being electrocuted in their own showers due to a contractor’s incompetence or negligence would be treated as a sensational front page story. As far as I can tell, though, the Washington Post did not even pick it up, period, and it appears that the New York Times buried it inside in its “Mideast” section. I see two hard-copy newspapers most days, and get a lot of news online. I watch the news every night. I missed it except for a reference I picked up (but was unable to follow) on Air America one afternoon.

Who is making the distinctly partisan, political decision not to treat it with the prominence it would normally get? Make no mistake about it, a decision to downplay a story of that dramatic magnitude is nothing but a dishonest, partisan editorial decision. It is what the American press has come to.