Newsworthy

In today’s Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby sees “Signs of success in Iraq”:

When Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced last week that a US air strike had killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi reporters burst into cheers and applause. It was a heartwarming -- and to American eyes, unnatural -- show of joy. Most American journalists would think it unseemly to cheer anything said at a press conference, even the news that a sadistic mass murderer had finally met his end.

Important and welcome as Zarqawi's assassination was, it didn't put a dent in the quagmire-of-the-week mindset that depicts the war as a fiasco wrapped in a scandal inside a failure. Typical of the prevailing pessimism was the glum Page One headline in The Washington Post the morning after Maliki's announcement: ``After Zarqawi, No Clear Path In Weary Iraq."

Virtually from day one, the media have reported this war as a litany of gloom and doom. Images of violence and destruction dominate TV coverage. Analysts endlessly second-guess every military and political decision. Allegations of wrongdoing by US soldiers get far more play than tales of their heroism and generosity. No wonder more than half of the public now believes it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq.

After Zarqawi, and despite the media, Americans are more positive about the future in Iraq.