When Good News is No News

Victor Davis Hanson remarks on the fact that the Drive-by-media has taken Iraq off the front pages. Invested as they are in defeat, they "spike" good news of American success. turning an old maxim on its head:

There’s an old expression about war: “Victory has many fathers, while defeat is an orphan.” But in the case of Iraq, it seems the other way around. We’ve blamed many for the ordeal of the last four years, but it is the American victory in Anbar province that now seems without parents.

Of course Hanson makes the mistake of assuming that the media's enemy is America's enemy. That would be wrong. To the Drive-bys, the enemy is the Bush administration and victory is defined as defeating anything that Bush does. So from the Drive-by's perspective, victory in Iraq is actually defeat for their side. And that defeat is an orphan, never to be spoken of again.

As an example of the desperate spin and pathetic efforts by dog trainers like the Virginian Pilot I refer you to today's on-line edition. There is actually a headline under U.S./World News: Suicide car bombing in Iraq kills 6 on the main page of the November 15th edition.

Click on the link and you find that the headline on the AP story is the exact opposite of what you have been led to expect: US general: Roadside bombs down sharply

Iran's commitments to stem the flow of weapons and explosives into Iraq "appear to be holding up" and have contributed to a sharp drop in roadside bombs across the country, a U.S. general said Thursday.

Maj. Gen. James Simmons, a deputy corps commander, said that in October, U.S. forces logged 1,560 cases in which bombs were either found and exploded.

That compared with 3,239 incidents last March, he said. The October figure was the lowest since September 2005, he added.

It is not until the 9th paragraph that we get to news of any casualties:

U.S. authorities said penetrators were used in an attack Wednesday against a U.S. Stryker vehicle near an entrance to the Green Zone, killing one American soldier and wounding five others. Iraqi police said two Iraqi civilians also were killed.

It was the first major attack against a U.S. military vehicle in that area in the last four or five months, Simmons said.

There was no suicide bomber, the number of dead were 3 (one American and two Iraqis) and the story was about the reduction in violence.

How desperate was this headline writer? Well, he works for the the dysfunctional Virginian Pilot so you draw your own conclusions.