On June 28, Paul Bremer gave a farewell speech as he stepped down as U.S. administrator in Iraq (news - web sites). Some Iraqis, at least, found the talk moving. Ali Fadhil, 34, a resident in pediatrics at a Baghdad hospital, watched it on television with a group in the cafeteria. He said Bremer's words choked up even a onetime supporter of April's Shiite uprising.

We have this information about the Bremer speech because Fadhil and his brothers are bloggers who file their own reports on the Internet (iraqthemodel.blogspot.com). I had never heard of "Iraq the Model," but Margie Wylie of Newhouse News Service produced a good story June 29 about Fadhil's blogging and Bremer's talk.

Word that Bremer actually gave the speech is something of a collector's item among American reporters. The Washington Post said Bremer left without giving a talk. The Los Angeles Times did worse. It missed the speech, then insulted Bremer for not giving it. A July 4 Times "news analysis" said: "L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator for Iraq, left without even giving a final speech to the country -- almost as if he were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year." This is a good one-sentence example of what readers object to in much Iraq reporting -- dubious or wrong information combined with a heavy load of attitude from the reporter...