Surge-tacular!
By Here’s what I love about the wingnut-o-sphere:
Step 1: Read on Instapundit that “the surge is working.”
Step 2: Learn (via Rubble Boy’s link)that former Bush/Cheney webmaster claims in a Townhall column that “It hasn’t been reported on widely, but murders in Baghdad are down 70%.”
Step 3: See that webmaster links to Trekkie Clausewitz Dafydd ab Hugh on the 70% figure, among other “incisive” matters. Read Trekkie Clausewitz and learn that “attacks in Baghdad have now “plummeted more than 70%.” Impressive.
Step 4: Follow Trekkie’s link to unsourced military strategy blog a guy who makes military board games.
Step 5: Realize that a shitload of people are citing this mysterious “70%” figure, all without attributing it to an actual source.
Step 6: Learn that not only has the 70% drop in Baghdad’s murder rate not been “widely reported,” it appears not to have been reported anywhere. It has been reported, however, that diarrhea rates among children have increased as much as 70 percent in Anbar province since 2006; attacks in Diyala against American troops have increased 70 percent since last summer; and about 70 percent of Americans oppose the surge.
Oh, and a big car bomb just killed a bunch of people.
. . . I should also add that these the very people who devoted so much pointless wristwork to “debunking” not liking the discovery by public health researchers that higher death rates in Iraq had likely produced hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.