Media Defeatism Watch

Here's a June 6th article from UPI headlined "Baghdad car bomber slips through security". The opening paragraph is as follows:

A suicide bomber detonated his booby-trapped car north of Baghdad Monday, injuring four Iraqi soldiers despite security raids near the Iraqi capital.

So a suicide car bomber slipped past the dragnet and launched a successful attack just north of Baghdad, which means that the major Iraqi security operation in that city has been a failure. Or, at least the reader is left with that impression if he or she only looks at the headline and first paragraph. If you continue reading, however, you'll see the following information:

Security sources said the attack occurred outside a U.S.-Iraqi military base in Tikrit, hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Baghdad.


In other words, contrary to what's implied by the headline and opening paragraph, the bombing took place 125 freaking miles from Baghdad. How security operations there were supposed to prevent a car bombing in Tikrit is an absolute mystery. That's like blaming the police here in Greenville for not stopping a criminal act in Raleigh or Chapel Hill.

Only abject negative bias or an utter lack of logic can explain the slant given to this article. Neither alternative is comforting.