Here’s an interesting issue for the “liberal media” to ponder:

In January, 2004, when the Des Moines Register made an unexpected endorsement of John Edwards as the best presidential pick for participants in Iowa’s Democratic Caucuses, it was national news. The Register, an extremely influential newspaper because of its wide circulation in a relatively small state, shook up the Democratic dance card. The Register’s editors found themselves being interviewed on national television and radio programs, as political writers for daily newspapers across the country stumbled over themselves to assess the significance of this particularly influential newspaper’s endorsement of a still relatively unknown senator. As it turned out, the attention to the endorsement was merited, as Edwards himself acknowledged that his strong second place finish in the caucuses owed much to the boost he got from one of Middle America’s most historically powerful and respected publications.

So what would happen if the same newspaper were to come out this year with a strong editorial calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq? And what if that editorial represented a reversal of the newspaper’s previous “stay-the-course position?

Would that be news? Would national media outlets that are supposedly trying to ascertain the changing sentiments of the nation with regard to the war, and that are already busy charting the 2008 presidential competition in Iowa, take notice of an important development in a bellweather state? Might it be considered significant that a large daily newspaper with a national reputation has joined what Editor & Publisher magazine’s Greg Mitchell — who has for two years been noting the lack of serious discussion about ending the war on the nation’s editorial pages — refers to as “the very thin ranks of those proposing an exit strategy”?

The answer, lamentably, is “no.”

We know because the Register did endorse a withdrawal timetable in a major editorial published Sunday, March 19, in which the newspaper’s editors argued: “The old notion of an open-ended commitment to ‘stay the course’ no longer makes sense. The nature of the conflict has changed. So must American strategy. A date certain to end the U.S. occupation should be the linchpin of that strategy — not to abandon Iraq but to put its feuding factions on notice that the United States isn’t going to hang around to baby-sit their civil war.”

Yet, with the better part of a week gone by, the Register’s wise words have barely been noted outside Iowa — not even by the political reporters who keep every farmer in the state on speed dial in anticipation of the next round of presidential caucuses. (Google “Iowa presidential caucuses” and “200*” and you’ll find several hundred articles just from the past few weeks.)

The point here is not to suggest that one Iowa newspaper’s shift in stance on the war should dominate the national news. The point is to ask: Why no attention at all?

Why has the same mass media that provides 27/7 coverage of President Bush’s latest repetitions of worn arguments for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq displayed no significant interest in the fact that the Register had broken ranks with the lockstep of major American dailies on what is supposed to be a volatile and divisive issue?

Here’s one answer: Perhaps, despite all the whining from the White House and its many broadcast, print and digital echo chambers about how the “mainstream media” is too tough on the President and his war, most major news outlets that have taken positions tend to be skeptical but still officially supportive adherents of the president’s approach — as opposed to advocates for the sort of withdrawal timetable that has been advanced by Representative John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, and that polls suggest the majority of Americans favor. (A recent Gallup Poll found that 54 percent of those surveyed favor withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq within a year.)

By endorsing a withdrawal timetable, the Des Moines Register — the largest-circulation newspaper in one of the most closely watched political environments in the country — distinguished itself from the vast majority of American daily publications. It also gave voice to popular sentiments that are still too rarely voiced in the major media of the land.

It should have been news. That it was not is one more indictment of the television networks and vast majority of major newspapers of a country where the discourse is far too narrow, and where the term “liberal media” is not merely inaccurate but comic.

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Here is the Des Moines Register editorial, “Timetable to Leave Iraq,” which appeared March 19, 2006:

The time has come for President Bush to do what he has resolutely insisted he would never do: Set a timetable to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The old notion of an open-ended commitment to “stay the course” no longer makes sense. The nature of the conflict has changed. So must American strategy.

A date certain to end the U.S. occupation should be the linchpin of that strategy — not to abandon Iraq but to put its feuding factions on notice that the United States isn’t going to hang around to baby-sit their civil war.

What was originally thought to be a conflict involving a few insurgents trying to drive out American forces has morphed into something else. The insurgency is no longer about the American occupation. Iraqis are slaughtering Iraqis in a vicious cycle of suicide-bomb atrocities and revenge assassinations.

It¹s a harsh thing to say, but if Sunni and Shiite Iraqis insist on killing one another, let it be without American troops standing in the crossfire.

The United States has no vital interest in taking sides. It does, along with the rest of the world, have an interest in having a peaceful Iraq, but it is increasingly apparent that imposing harmony in a land of centuries-old tribal, religious and ethnic blood feuds is beyond the capacity of 130,000 U.S. troops, no matter how superb their performance and how great their courage.

The U.S. invasion produced chaos and unleashed ancient hatreds, as experts on the Middle East warned it would. President Bush chose not to listen, preferring to believe his own fairy-tale vision of happy Iraqis welcoming Americans. Now, in the words of the nursery rhyme, all the king¹s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Iraq back together again.

Only the Iraqis themselves can halt the madness.

The last hope for averting all-out civil war and the possible breakup of Iraq is if a national unity government can be established, but members of the ethnically divided parliament have been unable to form such a government. An announcement by the United States that our troops will pull out might help focus the minds of the Baghdad politicians. It would force them to stare into the abyss of a full-blown ethnic civil war with no American troops around to keep the country in one piece.

Once they’re on notice of an American departure, Iraqi elected leaders and insurgents alike will have a powerful incentive to reach an accommodation.

Withdrawing U.S. troops does not mean abandoning the region. American diplomats should continue encouraging the formation of a unity government during a phased withdrawal, and the United States should remain obligated to help rebuild the country if order returns. Regardless of what happens, American air power should guarantee the security and autonomy of the Kurds in northern Iraq, who have achieved relative stability in their region and have been staunch friends.

The United States should maintain forces nearby and stand ready to confront any terrorist regime that might emerge in some part of Iraq. The international force must be maintained in Afghanistan, too, to prevent the return of the Taliban and keep up the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

But the military occupation of Iraq has achieved all it can. It’s time to redeploy the troops, keeping in mind that the original mission has long since been achieved. No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq threaten America, and a dictator has been deposed. A democratically elected parliament is in place.

Whatever happens from here must be left up to the Iraqis themselves.