Success! (So Far)

This is from Taranto, "Best of the Web" at WSJ and is right in line with what I have been noticing. From the sounds of this, apparently even the NYT agrees that Iraq being "out of the news" means that there is solid progress there again. Could there EVER be a time when the MSM and the Democrats would say something like; "We were premature when we said that Iraq had descended into civil war and the situation was not recoverable. It IS being recovered and we applaud the success of the US and Iraqi troops and will do what we can to help it continue".

Is that possible? Nope, I don't think it is. The Democrats and the MSM have declared Iraq "the worst decision ever", "a lost cause", "civil war", "a tradegdy", "a waste", just too many times to be willing to acknowledge success there. It is a matter of ideology, not reality.

Mission Accomplished?
Yesterday New York Post columnist Ralph Peters issued a dare to the New York Times:

Do we still have troops in Iraq? Is there still a conflict over there?

If you rely on the so-called mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days. As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has magically vanished from the headlines.

Want a real "inconvenient truth?" Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.

But that fact isn't helpful to elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops are winning. Daily.

You won't see that above the fold in The New York Times.

Today, the Times took him up on the dare:

Iraqi forces rolled unopposed through the huge Shiite enclave of Sadr City on Tuesday, a dramatic turnaround from the bitter fighting that has plagued the Baghdad neighborhood for two months, and a qualified success for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

As it did in the southern city of Basra last month, the Iraqi government advanced its goal of establishing sovereignty and curtailing the powers of the militias.

This was a hopeful accomplishment, but one that came with caveats: In both cities, the militias eventually melted away in the face of Iraqi troops backed by American firepower. Thus nobody can say just where the militias might re-emerge or when Iraqi and American forces might need to fight them again.

The Times put the caveat right in the headline--"Operation in Sadr City Is an Iraqi Success, So Far"--and we do not seem to remember the paper being so careful to hedge its bets when reporting on setbacks for America's side. Still, it's nice to see our colleague at the Post get results.