After trumpeting Bush's defense of the troops, media have yet to challenge Bush decision to dismantle checkpoints and downgrade search for missing soldier in Iraq

Amid the controversy over Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) "botched joke" at an October 30 campaign event, President Bush accused the senator of insulting U.S. soldiers and described his comments as a "diminution of their sacrifice." White House press secretary Tony Snow asserted that Kerry maligned "the nature of the troops" and claimed that his remarks upset "a lot of" soldiers. But while the media have devoted substantial ink and airtime to Republican reactions to Kerry's words and reported widely on the administration's pronouncements of concern regarding troop morale, they have declined to challenge the administration on its recent decision to dismantle military checkpoints intended to aid in the search for an abducted U.S. soldier or on any effect that decision might have on troop morale.

Indeed, while the press corps spent most of the November 1 White House press briefing asking Snow about the Kerry controversy, reporters asked only one question pertaining to the missing American: "What is the status of the kidnapped American soldier?" Snow's answer: "We're still looking for him." Meanwhile, Bush sat down for a November 1 interview with syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh during which he claimed to be "doing great" and said of the Kerry matter, "[O]ur troops deserve the full support of people in government." Bush also said: "[I]t is going to be a tough fight, but I will tell you something. The morale in our military is high because these young men and women understand the stakes. Re-enlistment rates are very high and recruitment rates are strong, which all says to me we've got an amazing country when we've got people who put on the uniform say, 'Put me in. I want to go fight for this country.' " But neither Bush nor Limbaugh mentioned the missing soldier.

On October 23, gunmen reportedly abducted the Iraqi-American soldier as he visited relatives in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad. A large-scale manhunt ensued, with U.S. forces erecting barricades and checkpoints around the Sadr City section of the city, where the soldier was believed to be held. The United States maintained this cordon for eight days, until Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki issued a public declaration on October 31 insisting that the checkpoints be dismantled. U.S. commanders reportedly acceded to al-Maliki's demand and abandoned the checkpoints within hours of his request.

This development led some former supporters of the war, such as blogger Andrew Sullivan, to accuse the administration of abandoning the search for the soldier. From a November 1 post on Sullivan's weblog:

The U.S. military does not have a tradition of abandoning its own soldiers to foreign militias, or of taking orders from foreign governments. No commander-in-chief who actually walks the walk, rather than swaggering the swagger, would acquiesce to such a thing. The soldier appears to be of Iraqi descent who is married to an Iraqi woman. Who authorized abandoning him to the enemy? Who is really giving the orders to the U.S. military in Iraq? These are real questions about honor and sacrifice and a war that is now careening out of any control. They are not phony questions drummed up by a partisan media machine to appeal to emotions to maintain power.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration continued to slam Kerry for his October 30 remarks at a campaign rally in Pasadena, California. During the event, Kerry said to a group of assembled college students, "Education, you know, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Kerry later clarified that his remarks were meant as criticism of Bush's intellect and handling of the Iraq war and that he in no way intended to malign members of the U.S. military. Nonetheless, appearing at an October 31 Republican rally in Perry, Georgia, Bush said, "[T]here are some things we should all be able to agree on, and one of the most important is that every one of our troops deserves our respect and our gratitude." He went on to describe Kerry as having said that U.S. soldiers are "somehow uneducated" -- a suggestion he called "insulting and ... shameful," before demanding an apology from the senator.

The following day, Bush appeared on The Rush Limbaugh Show and was asked by Limbaugh, "How are you doing?" Bush responded, "I'm doing great. I really am. You know, when you've been doing this as long as I have you feed off the crowds and feed off the enthusiasm and you like a contest, and we're in a really important contest, and so I'm doing fine." The subsequent discussion touched on a number of issues, including the Iraq war. When asked about Kerry's remarks, Bush responded: "Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words, and our troops deserve the full support of people in government." Bush went on to say, "People here may not agree with my decision [to go to war in Iraq]. I understand that. But what I don't understand is any diminution of their sacrifice."

During the November 1 White House press briefing, Snow echoed Bush's remarks, calling Kerry's October 30 statement "an insult delivered to troops" and emphasizing that they "need to understand ... we support them." "[T]his was a statement that seemed to talk about the nature of the troops," Snow told reporters, adding later, "[A] lot of people are pretty ticked off about this ... and what they say is, 'It came across as an insult to us.' "

But in the face of Snow's repeated declarations of concern for the military, the White House press corps failed to question the administration's decision to abandon the Sadr City checkpoints or to challenge the administration on the effect of that action on troop morale. During the press briefing -- which included extensive discussion of the Kerry controversy -- only one reporter mentioned that the checkpoints had been dismantled, but did so in a question regarding what al-Maliki's opposition to the cordon indicated about his commitment to "cracking down on these sectarian militias":

REPORTER: Second question is, how much does Maliki's decision to take down some of these checkpoints raise the question of whether he is, or is not, cracking down on these sectarian militias -- that are really the major problem?

SNOW: And they continue to be. What happened is -- and this is one thing that I'm afraid we didn't explain as we should have -- the prime minister, [U.S. ambassador to Iraq] Zal[may] Khalilzad and General [George] Casey all agreed that they were going to take down some of the checkpoints. There was a real concern that for a lot of Iraqis trying to get to work, they had to wait two or three hours just to get through a checkpoint, and it was becoming a real problem for a lot of people. And so it created avenues for people to get in and out and get to work.

Later, USA Talk Radio managing editor Victoria Jones simply asked Snow for an update on the missing soldier, to which he answered, "We're still looking for him." But rather than follow up with a question regarding what the decision to abandon the checkpoints indicated about the extent of the search, Jones moved on to yet another question regarding Kerry:

JONES: Tony, I have two. The first one is, what is the status of the kidnapped American soldier?

SNOW: We're still looking for him.

JONES: And the second one is, on the Kerry thing, in the event that he apologizes, will the president give the command as head of the Republican Party for the attack dogs to be called off?

Jones's question represented the press corps' only mention of the missing soldier during the entire briefing.

Likewise, the abducted soldier did not come up once during Limbaugh's extended discussion with Bush.

From the November 1 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

BUSH: We have taken a measured approach to talking about casualties, but I can assure your listeners: Our troops are on the offense, and they're after an enemy. When they find the enemy and the enemy confronts, we win.

They can't beat us on the battlefield. The only way we can lose this is if we leave, and our troops are -- the other thing people say, "Well, you know, it's a long slug and therefore it's going to be hard to maintain morale in the military." One: It is going to be a tough fight, but I will tell you something. The morale in our military is high because these young men and women understand the stakes. Re-enlistment rates are very high and recruitment rates are strong, which all says to me we've got an amazing country when we've got people who put on the uniform and say, "Put me in. I want to go fight for this country."

LIMBAUGH: Yeah, and then they turn around and get insulted routinely. John Kerry is not the first. He's just the latest, Mr. President. We don't really have to focus on him. You've spoken about Senator Kerry. He's now trying to laugh this off by saying he was talking about you, but clearly he has a Vietnam-era mind-set, back when we had a draft, that if you didn't have a college deferment you got drafted -- and that's his thinking on who comprises military members, that they're basically uneducated rubes. But it's not just Senator Kerry. We've got Senator Durbin who has impugned interrogators at Guántanamo Bay. Throughout this war effort the Democrats -- some Democrats have done their best to impugn the people who are volunteering, offering their lives in sacrifice to defend this country. They have questioned their motives. They've questioned their backgrounds and so forth -- and frankly, Mr. President, the American people are outraged by this because John Kerry is just the latest. This is not the first.

BUSH: Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words, and our troops deserve the full support of people in government. People here may not agree with my decision. I understand that. But what I don't understand is any diminution of their sacrifice. We've got incredible people in our military, and they deserve full praise and full support of this government. Secondly, what they deserve is a plan for victory, and we have a plan for victory. Our victory, as you know, is really to help the Iraqis win, to help the 12 million people, to help Iraq realize the dreams of 12 million people who voted. To help the political process and help the security process and help the economic process, and we're doing just that. It's not easy work, because there's an enemy that still tries to derail the process. They're trying to foment sectarian violence. On the other hand, it's necessary work. My problem with many of the Democrat [sic] voices in Washington is they have no plan for victory.