I certainly see your perspective here, but am concerned that the term MSM has grown too elastic, especially over the last three years. I was reading a fair amount of coverage as to the Surge’s early successes in 2007, a Mickey Kaus seems to have been an early predictor of those successes. Are the Weekly Standard and Washington Post not mainstream media? WS editor William Kristol now writes for the New York Times! Max Boot writes frequently for the LA Times. VDH is widely syndicated. Are they to blame too? That would be silly.
Secondly, I would love to know what the internal debates were like within AQ over Zarqawi’s insidious little blood-fest in Iraq. I recall an organizational expert once saying that “in any bureaucracy over a dozen people, there is at least one person who knows the truth.” A truth that can be buried, no doubt, but one that is still there. Where dissenting voices silenced long before Zawahiri wrote his infamous letter telling Zarqawi to, for Allah’s sake, chill out a little?