"Absolute in its sense of hopelessness about Iraq and its contempt for the president"...and WRONG!

Here is a January 20 headline from the Denver Post:

"Peace allows Iraq many candidates to campaign"

There follows on page 16A an Associated Press story about how candidates feel safe enough to campaign and debate issues ranging from housing shortages (because so many Iraqies are returning to their country now that it is safe to do so) to the need to attract foreign investments.

14,431 candidates are vying for 444 seats on provincial councils in all but four of Iraq's 18 provinces. Nearly 3 of every 4 Iraqies plan to vote, which is, of course, way higher than election turnouts in America.

Remember how the big-mouth Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, used to disparage the "hopeless civil war" in Iraq? Remember how the AP, Denver Post, and most other major newspapers used to barrage us daily with doomsday scenarios regarding Iraq?

What happened? Did we actually defeat the terrorists in Iraq? George Bush and Dick Cheney were villified by the media and the Hollywood celebrities month-after-month, year-after-year. Bush and Cheney are gone now, so it's now time to write about things going well in Iraq?

William McGurn wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal:

"There are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable. On the night Mr. Bush announced the surge, Barack Obama said, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." Three months after that, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pronounced the war in Iraq "lost." These comments were amplified by a media echo chamber even more absolute in its sense of hopelessness about Iraq and its contempt for the president."