Levin, Warner Note "Positive Results" From Surge; MSNBC Reports "Levin, Warner Pessimistic On Iraq"

Indeed, their joint report is pessimistic about the al-Maliki government and its willingness to make helpful political compromises.

But note the desultory mention MSNBC gives to the rather upbeat admission of Carl Levin of real, tangible progress being made in Iraq.

"We are also encouraged by continuing positive results – in al Anbar Province, from the recent decisions of some of the Sunni tribes to turn against al Qaeda and cooperate with coalition force efforts to kill or capture its adherents..."

Levin also admitted real and tangible increases in security in Baghdad, and noted that 11 of the 12 divisions of Iraqi armed forces will be trained by the end of this year.

Indeed, there are "pessimistic" notes coming from passionate anti-war liberal and converted anti-war fake-conservative douchebag Warner. But they were already anti-war -- is the fact that they continue making anti-war noises the real story? Or is the real story that these two anti-war douchebags concede real and tangible military progress?

Obviously the latter -- but the MSM chooses to spin it otherwise.

Notice the MSM's rather selective use of the man-bites-dog principle. Obviously man-bites-dog stories are more interesting than dog-bites-man stories. When a conservative Republican makes anti-war noises -- joins the anti-war cause -- the MSM can't stop talking about it, overplaying the story to the hilt, justifying the excess of their reportage on the basis that it's a man-bites-dog story. The fact that this is unexpected is what makes it newsworthy.

Well, here we have two guys already on the record in favor of withdrawal and defeat bludgeoned by the facts into admitting significant progress in Iraq.

One would imagine this would get the man-bites-dog treatment.

Nope. Even though that's the unexpected and interesting part of the news, they instead play the same old dog-bites-man story that Levin is (shock!) still as anti-war as he ever was.

I grow weary of the MSM telling me its reportage is dictated by objective rules like man-bites-dogs but then choosing to suspend these supposedly objective rules whenever following them might undermine the Media Party's agenda.

More: Levin Declares the Surge Has "Utterly Failed"... in the Iraqi parliament, at least.

Where American troops are not, to my knowledge, deployed.

On the battlefield, where they're actually deployed, they're making success of such a sort that not even Carl Levin can deny.

And yet the MSM dutifully reports: Failure. At least according to the freshly relocated goalposts.

Worse Than Dog Bites Man: It's dog bites man where the dog already announced his intention to bite the man. Making Levin's biting of the man even less newsworthy:

"I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the military situation to a report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq," said Levin, who is taking his eighth trip to Iraq since the war began.

So basically Levin wanted to see if he could con the media into reporting the story with his slant.

What a shock that he succeeded.

Remember Harry Reid's Jedi Mind Trick regarding Democrats who voted against the Comprehensive Piece of Shit, thus muddying his preferred narrative that Hispanics shouldn't vote for anti-Hispanic Republicans?

When another reporter pressed him on Democrats opposed to cloture he cut the person off: “Let’s not focus on Democrats,” Reid said.

And, surprise surprise, the NYT editorial the following day contained numerous mentions of Republicans and not a single mention of a Democrat voting against the Comprehensive Piece of Shit -- indeed, they refused to even include the word "Democrat" in the article at all.

How surprising that Carl Levin's attempt to "shift the focus" has been so wildly effective.