On December 10 of last year, a couple of days before the capture of Saddam Hussein, thousands of pro-democracy Iraqis marched in various cities to protest the continuing outbreaks of terrorist activity. It was, noted one Iraqi blogger, “probably the largest demonstration in Baghdad for months. It wasn’t just against terrorism. It was against Arab media, against the interference of neighboring countries, against dictatorships, against Wahhabism, against oppression, and of course against the Ba’ath and Saddam.” For most of us, this would be big news. Here the “mainstream” media had been telling us for months that things were going badly in Iraq. We were losing the peace. It was a “quagmire.” The people were against the U.S. military. But wait, here are a spate of demonstrations for peace, for the liberation of Iraq, for the rule of law. Banner headlines, no?

No indeed. CNN, continuing its policy of strict evenhandedness—the Bush administration is in the wrong even if it turns out it was right—had three main headlines on its web site that morning: two different stories bore the same headline: “Iraqi civilian deaths ‘avoidable.’” The third headline read “Center of U.S. operations in Baghdad attacked.” In other words, all the bad news all the time.