<Another point, I wonder how many of those embeds have gained an entirly different view of the US servicemen and women. Of their dedication, valor and commitment?

Last week, I posted this link to a UPI commentary on the topic. It seems the embedded reporters learned that the military isn't filled with knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who would be losers anywhere else. That alone may make the embedded reporter concept one of the big success stories of the war. Most people who have not served in the military have a lot of misconceptions about the services and the men and women in uniform. Quite a few people actually distrust the military due to their misconceptions born of ignorance (and remember, Will Rogers said that "Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects."). I hope this attitude is changing.

With the British troops and the U.S. 3rd Division, with the 101st Airborne and the Marines, with the gunners and the medics and the Air Force and aboard ships, there are hundreds of journalists learning the same lessons, getting to know the same kinds of troops, and realizing that we in the media had better rethink the way we do our work.

One of the consequences of the way the British and Americans have dropped conscription and now use professional armies is that the media and the broader population have become disconnected from their troops.

The military have become a private club, and one that has learned to distrust most of the media, who know little of the people who fight in their country's name. The legacy of wars in dubious causes like Vietnam or some of the British colonial wars has widened the gulf of mutual ignorance and mistrust.

This still happens. At one of the daily briefings at Coalition Command headquarters in Qatar (about 300 miles behind the lines), a large and skeptical media corps became restive at what they saw as military stonewalling or weasel words about responsibility for civilian casualties in the Baghdad bombing.

Journalists on the front lines took a very different view of the need for operational security. We did not even complain when we were ordered to turn off our satellite phones because the Iraqi guns seemed to be able to zero on their transmissions, or when we were asked not to report something.

"Screw the nut on it, mate," a British SAS Special Forces trooper told me when I came across him questioning one of his Iraqi agents inside Basra. "No photos, and not a word until Basra falls -- all right?"

Of course it was alright. Forget journalistic objectivity. There were armed men across the road trying to kill me, and my protection depended on these British troops, many of whom I knew by their first names. There was no question which side I was on.

As for "journalistic objectivity" (which is largely a myth, IMO), it has to take a back seat when you're talking about putting peoples' lives in danger. There's no reason why most stories can wait until the bullets stop flying.