Petraeus “Optimistic”? Go Figure!

In a matter of minutes, TV stations across the nation will be flipped through angrily as General David Petraeus eats up our precious daytime tube-watching with his much-anticipated testimony before Congress on the progress of the Iraq troop surge.

You know, the report that president Bush has called the “Petraeus Report” just about every day for the last month. Most everyone else was calling it that, too, until the L.A. Times broke the interesting news that:

Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

Sorry – one more time?

“It would actually be written by the White House.”

I thought that’s what it said.

That bit of information – just a tad relevant, no? – has gone completely unreported in the Herald. Miami’s vaunted daily failed to mention this – at all, ever: only three days after the L.A. Times article broke, the Herald wrote “[Petraeus] is preparing a highly anticipated report to Congress,” failing to mention anywhere that the West Wing was actually doing the writing.

Nor has the Herald ran anything indicating as much since. Not to be swayed at the eleventh hour, apparently, today’s Herald headline reads “Petraeus’ Iraq Report expected to be optimistic.”

You’re kidding. — Isaiah Thompson