Death from above. A conservative critic of Media Log who goes by the name of Yee Haw thinks my item on Donald Rumsfeld's briefing yesterday suggests I was being critical of the Bush administration for not unleashing "shock and awe" earlier.

Yee: "Are you going to sit there and tell me you're going to second guess these guys on tactics? C'mon, Dan.  You're going to criticize them on trying to keep as many Iraqis alive as possible? Because there's a delay in how quickly the Iraqis are surrendering, this is somehow going to be a political problem for Bush?"

Wow. I hope Yee was the only reader who misinterpeted me that badly. For the sake of argument, I'll assume I wasn't clear enough, so I'll try again:

There would be no need for shock and awe if we hadn't launched this war in the first place.

Clear enough?

Having said that, we are at war, and everyone hopes it can be wrapped up as quickly, and with as little loss of life, as possible.

I'm glad that Rumsfeld and George W. Bush held off on the massive bombing. My only point is that, by raising expectations that shock and awe might not be needed after all, the effect on worldwide opinion is going to be even more damaging than if they had simply opened the war with it, as everyone had predicted they would.