Reporter Dante Chinni has a piece in today's Christian Science Monitor that offers grudging respect for Roggio's work. Chinni notes that Roggio frequently embeds himself with troops in Iraq, giving him special insight into the risks and challenges the troops face every day. On the other hand, Chinni can't resist getting in a few digs. Here's how he begins his piece:

In recent months, the gruesome images and stories emanating from Iraq have hardened the public's perception about the conflict there. The war is increasingly viewed as a grim, chaotic mess.

Voters made their disappointment in the war known a month ago in the midterm elections, according to exit polls that showed the issue was an important vote driver. Official Washington sanctioned that view last week when the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, wrote in its report that the situation on the ground was "grave and deteriorating."

But for those who troll the blogosphere for news, there is a distinctly different view of the Iraq war available. In this version, the United States is "winning the war on the battlefield, albeit with difficulties in some areas," but "losing the information war."

Translation: Roggio is a wingnut who engages in biased reporting to score political points. You know what they say about people who live in glass houses, Mr. Chinni. Also, I don't remember "Official Washington" ceding authority to the Iraq Study Group, a self appointed group of retirees, lobbyists and jurists with little expertise in foreign affairs. Then there's this:

His bias can be overwhelming at times - his posts can sound a lot like government talking points filtered through war stories. When he's not filing stories from a war zone, he likes to take issue with the mainstream media's reporting of events, such as The Washington Post's recent report on the dangers of Anbar Province. He often sees Al Qaeda as the hand behind most of what's going on in Iraq, such as the Thanksgiving bombings that killed more than 200.

Those views are not in the mainstream and many people, including Iraq Study Group cochairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton, do not subscribe to them. But while some might discount Roggio as a journalist who lets his patriotism and ties to the military get in the way of his work, there is value in his reportage.

The Christian Science Monitor notes that Chinni "writes a twice-monthly column on media issues." No doubt while sipping a nice latte in the comfort of his Boston loft. I'll wager that there's more value in Bill Roggio's reporting from Iraq than in all the columns on "media issues" that Chinni has ever written.

Update: In his most recent post, Bill notes that his writings on Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan and even Iraq don't often sound like government talking points. "I fail to see how saying we lost western Pakistan to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and Somalia to the Islamic Courts, and failed to subdue al-Qaeda in Ramadi and Muqtada al-Sadr, are government talking points. In fact, I've made some people in the government very uncomfortable."