Glenn's header speaks of bogus letters from soldiers in Iraq, but how is a letter "bogus" when it's been signed by most of them? After my first read, I thought that this might be something I'd hoped wouldn't happen - blatantly miscredited letters to diminish the value and authenticity of real anecdotes sent home from soldiers in Iraq.

But it's not. All of the soldiers reached by the reporter agree with the depiction of Iraq in the form letter; five of six willingly signed their names to it. Read further, and the only other soldiers who didn't know about the effort are spokesmen - press liaisons, not grunts. What does that tell us about the situation other than that it was carried out on lower levels without the knowledge of brass?

The reporter then overplays his hand by inserting a sliver of an anti-war editorial - let's face it, to describe six months of occupation as a "prolonged involvement" in Iraq, as if the military planned to depart after a weekend or two, is a dead giveaway. Or else it's certainly not objective. In the Olympian publishing, the story ends with a dreary quote from one of the soldiers' mother. The impression readers are left with is one of fake letters sent without soldiers' knowledge to bolster flagging support for an invasion.

Which is silly, and the more I look into this article, the more I see a non-story cut to deliver a distinctly sour message. One of the eleven involved soldiers is Myron Tuttle of Tulare, California, whose local paper ran a slightly different publication of the report. His mother's reaction is quite different from the endnote in the Olympian:

Karen Tuttle, Myron's mother, said she agrees that there ought to be more publicity about what soldiers are accomplishing.

"Our guys need support," she said. "Myron believes they're doing [good] things there."

This is very simple. It appears that soldiers in Iraq were frustrated with imbalanced reporting at home; a letter was written and colleagues were asked if they wished to sign onto it. Somebody sent all the letters abroad. If everyone's authorization had been confirmed and no one's letter had been sent to the wrong place - according to his anti-war stepmother, at that - we would be left with news about an encouraging sign of hope and determination from our forces overseas, practically in the form of a petition.

GLENN RESPONDS: And another guy chimes in with direct knowledge - his nephew is in the unit. Well, like I said, when I first read it, I came away with a possible mockup. Instead, it looks like a minor mixup...turned into a little slam on the occupation. I do note that I'd sent the e-mail off identifying Tulare as a city in Florida. No idea why. They sound distantly similar? Damn, I hate it when that happens. The substance is correct. I'll take that. [Okay, he fixed it.] Exit, right.