THIRD DEGREE BURNS:

AUDIO INTERVIEW: 'New York Times' Iraq Correspondent John Burns (Fresh Air: NPR, November 25, 2003)

We catch up with him about the latest news from Iraq. He's in the United States for just one day, and then he goes back to Baghdad. Burns has won several Pulitzer Prizes for his overseas war reports.

You'll recall that Mr. Burns said the following about the despicable behavior of his peers in pre-war Iraq:

Terror, totalitarian states, and their ways are nothing new to me, but I felt from the start that this was in a category by itself, with the possible exception in the present world of North Korea. I felt that that was the central truth that has to be told about this place. It was also the essential truth that was untold by the vast majority of correspondents here. Why? Because they judged that the only way they could keep themselves in play here was to pretend that it was okay.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 29, 2003 11:35 AM