What happened to Dennis Kucinich?

On Sunday, Jeff Zeleny & Mark Santoro wrote in the NYT:

"Even as they call for an end to the war and pledge to bring the troops home, the Democratic presidential candidates are setting out positions that could leave the United States engaged in Iraq for years."

For Zeleny and Santoro, the Democratic presidential candidates include Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Richardson and Biden. All except Richardson fall into the "leave the United States engaged in Iraq for years" category. Only Richardson, according to Zeleny and Santoro (and the New York Times) differs from the group. They quote Richardson saying to the annual Kos conference last week,

"I have a one-point plan to get out of Iraq: Get out! Get out!".

The question arises: What happened to Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich? Are his views on this issue no longer of con sequence to the Times?

In 2006, he said:

"Hussein is in jail. Zarqawi is dead. Now we should leave Iraq.

"Zarqawi represented a small portion of a large and growing anti-American insurgency in Iraq, a sliver of the non-Baathist insurgency, while Baathists make up the majority of armed insurgents. So his killing is unlikely to end the violence in Iraq.

"Those who say we must prevail until victory are not themselves paying the price. Nearly 2,500 Americans are dead. Over 10,000 innocent Iraqis are dead. Our national honor is tainted by a false case for war, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Haditha. When will we understand that, as Michael Franti wrote, 'you can bomb the world to pieces but, you can't bomb the world to peace'."

In June, he told Tucker Carlson that "the U.S. needs to leave Iraq, the sooner, the better. But we can only do so with an international peace-keeping and security force replacing our troops. We have the money right now it's in the pipeline not only to bring the troops home but to carry out the plan I have been recommending for years now, which is embodied in HR 1234."

The question is, why did Zeleny and Santoro (and the N.Y. Times) leave Mr. Kucinich out of their article? It would seem that his position just doesn't fit their agenda. By blacking-out Mr. Kucinich and his ideas, The Times is narrowing the breadth of the Democratic debate and depriving its readers of a real choice in the upcoming primaries.

In a post to his blog several days ago, Dave Lindorf also asked "What's going on here?" He said:

"Apparently, given the Times’ famously inflated slogan 'All the News that’s Fit to Print,' news about Rep. Kucinich (D-OH), including about his carefully laid out plan to end the Iraq War and about his bill to impeach the vice president, are somehow not 'fit' to print.

"The self-referential nature of Times reporting would be laughable if it were not so damaging to public knowledge and discourse and to the democratic process. It would also garner an F in any decent journalism class."

We all know that a truly democratic process requires an informed collective. The disappearance of certain ideas (and candidates) because they don't fit the Times editors and reporters preconceived categories is destructive to this process.