Hold the good news: Iraq's pathetic payoff.

• Author: Cavanaugh, Tim

"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE are being fed a steady stream of negative stories about Iraq that in no way represent reality," writes Bill Crawford in National Review. Reporting on the "overwhelmingly pessimistic" and "increasingly negative" coverage of the war, L. Brent Bozell III's Media Research Center found that "network TV's profoundly pessimistic coverage has ... certainly contributed to the public's growing discontent with the war." In June Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complained that "the news media seem to want to carry the negative." In the words of blogger Stephen "Vodkapundit" Green, reporters put "their hatred of a Republican President before their love of country."

Thus the American media ignore the joyful, voluminous, ever-increasing good news that has apparently become Iraq's chief export now that its oil pipelines have been sabotaged beyond functionality. If only the media were reporting the positive developments, it's argued, the public would stop questioning whether the effort is worth the deaths of two or three brave Americans a day.

Unfortunately, the same people who bellow that the media are ignoring the good news become suspiciously quiet when it's time to say what that good news is. Fox News, The Weekly Standard, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and other war supporters run occasional features on Good News You're Not Hearing, but it's clear the real attraction is the "not hearing" rather than the "good news." Like the rest of the press, pro-war media outlets spend more time on battle deaths, terror attacks, and an insurgency whose death throes are entering a third year with no end in sight.

At press time, Iraq was planning a third post-invasion election and the Bush administration had published a "victory strategy"--positive events that got full media coverage. So what's this good news we keep hearing about not hearing about?

According to National Review's Crawford, an electrical plant in Nineveh "that had not been used for several years" has been turned back on after a $3 million renovation; the first of a planned 120 family health centers has been opened in Baghdad; and...