We decide. Then report.

This is tragic. And the piece itself spells out exactly why.

A contingent of conservatives talk radio hosts is headed to Iraq this month on a mission to report "the truth" about the war: American troops are winning, despite headlines to the contrary.

The "Truth Tour" has been pulled together by the conservative Web cast radio group Rightalk.com and Move America Forward, a non-profit conservative group backed by a Republican-linked public relations firm in California.

"The reason why we are doing it is we are sick and tired of seeing and hearing headlines by the mainstream media about our defeat in Iraq," Melanie Morgan, a talk radio host for KSFO Radio in San Francisco and co-chair of Move America Forward, said. . . .

Mark Williams, talk show host for KFBK in Sacramento and a member of the delegation, said the group will report "what we see and what we are told," but their collective feeling is that there is mostly good.

"We believe that the emphasis has been placed on the negative and if Americans knew what really was going on over there they would have an entirely different picture," said Williams.

"We are Americans first and journalists second, as opposed to the crop of 'pinkos' that tell us on the news every night that America is going to hell in a hand basket," he said.

The funny thing is that even though the Fox News story spells out exactly why this is nothing but a propaganda mission, they include links to more than half a dozen right-wing organizations in the story. A little free publicity never hurts, right? Strange that reactionary talking heads are quite clear about the fact that they're going to fly to Iraq with the sole purpose of telling audiences exactly what they're telling them already-- everything's fine, we're doing incredibly well, and there's no cause for concern. For people obsessed with communism, they sure take a lot of pages out of the Soviet Union PR handbook.