My buddy Bill Ardolino from INDC Journal will be heading to Iraq in late December as an embed, publishing both independent blog posts and op-eds for the Washington Examiner.  Writes the erstwhile chickenhawk of his motivations for heading to Iraq, where he’ll snuggle in with a Marine unit:

There are a variety of reasons that I’m going, but a fairly compelling one is curiosity coupled with dissatisfaction about the present coverage of the war.  This negative impression was reinforced by a surprising Pajamas Media item published in September:

Pajamas Media, in the course of a casual conversation with a Marine Corps information officer who tracks the number of embedded reporters in Iraq, learned the real number of embedded reporters covering the Iraq story on September 19, 2006. It was, according to the officer, a fairly typical day. To illustrate his point, he provided Pajamas Media with the illustration he uses to brief with on the state of media embedding in Iraq.

What was that number? Take a guess and then see the truth. No peeking.

If you guessed 9 reporters, you guessed right.

Thus, in addition to providing shallow, slanted updates on the war, the overwhelming majority of mainstream media outlets are failing to present the essential perspectives of military embeds at a pivotal time in the conflict. The Examiner is compensating me for certain pieces, but this will not cover my initial expenditures, which include a satellite modem, satellite phone rental, new toughbook laptop, body armor and lots more. So if you’d like to support citizen journalism, please consider donating to help fund my trip.

Bill is no shill for the administration, nor is he a GOP lapdog.  Hell, just ask the commenters at Ace’s place. 

Nevertheless, he’s been a supporter of the Iraq war—albeit one whose impressions and observations, once he arrives in country, he will report honestly.  Of that I have little doubt.

So if you have the means, click over and help him out. At a time when the anti-war Democratic base’s legislative attack poodles, soon to be in titular control of Congress, are acting as if they have a mandate to undue any and all inroads the coalition has made toward a lasting freedom in Iraq—sorry, but troop draw downs and arbitrary dates for evacuation will accomplish nothing else but that—it is important, I think, to support independent investigative journalism, particularly if you, like a growing number of Americans, simply can no longer bring yourself to trust the mainstream press.