Kane Watch: Dubious Reporting

Gene, Gene the Spin Machine is up to his old trick of under-reporting a story in an effort to make his point.

Citing a New York Times article claiming that most Americans want the job in Iraq finished and calling the poll upon which the story is based dubious, Kane points out that the group who conducted the poll is " basically a bunch of political hacks who blindly support Republicans."

All fine and well if he had stopped there, but he continues with the following snarky remark...

...no wonder they [the pollsters] are still pushing the war even as Bush's
good buddy Tony Blair is cashing in his chips with a withdrawl of British
troops.

I would like to direct Eugene to Patrick McIlheran's blog (I'm sure he must know the guy) where a little more analysis is done on the troop withdrawl story than just reading the headline...

...The British are leaving troops in Iraq, mainly to train Iraqis. This
differs from what we're doing there -- because the British are in a different
part of Iraq, where conditions differ. As Prime Minister Tony Blair pointed out,
"The situation in Basra is very different from Baghdad," he was quoted in the
Times. "There is no Sunni insurgency. There is no al-Qaeda base. There is little
Shia on Sunni violence. The bulk of the attacks are on the Multinational Force.
It has never presented anything like the challenge of Baghdad."

In fact, the British are turning over their main base near Basra to the
Iraqis. Swaths of the south, the part of Iraq they cover, are in Iraqi control.

This withdrawal is a landmark of the very thing the surrender side here
claims can never happen: Iraqis controlling their own country...

Of course, attention to detail would have prevented Kane from blindly opposing success in Iraq.

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