JEFF JARVIS notes an interesting passage in a New York Times report:

But perhaps more striking, considering the huge gap between the hopes stirred when American troops captured Baghdad in April 2003 and the grim realities now, were the number of Iraqis who expressed a more patient view. Among those people, the disappointments and privations have been offset by an appreciation of both the progress toward supplanting the dictatorship of Mr. Hussein with a nascent democratic system and the need for American troops to remain here in sufficient numbers to allow the system to mature.

If that’s so striking, asks Jarvis, “why wasn’t it the lead?” You may well ask.

[He is asking — Ed. And well he may.]