No I’m all set with the opinions of anyone whose media diet over six months consists of wolfing down daily talking-head speculation and conjecture.

I don’t think that at all of the BBC or AP, have friends who’ve made careers at both, they write right in their articles “we were unable to independently verify such reports” when they run with outrageous claims of third and fourth hand reports. There are also plenty of pan-Islamists in the UN and elsewhere, real “death-to-America” types, dreaming of the day that “Islam is restored to its rightful place in the world.” The whole thing with the UN is that any country can join and be heard. They have all types and all opinions at the UN.

The Secretary of Defense absolutely knows more than anyone you’ve mentioned, and perhaps an incentive to lie, sure, I’ll give you that. But he’s seen the raw intelligence on Hamas, their tunnels, their capabilities, their command structure, along with Israel’s operations, their efforts to warn, their raw explanations for targeting decisions. And he’s seen who made the choices that put these kids in harms way, who has been encouraging Palestinian people to stay in their homes to die as Martyrs, amwho pays people to commit war crimes. But most of all the Defense Secretary’s duty is to sort through the noise and be rational, not sit around being so sad over 33,000 people that he loses sight of the millions of lives his office is called to protect.