Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

I am really getting sick of this. This AP story today comes under the headline "Iraq war critics concede military progress in Iraq." And what are they talking about? Two loyal war supporters from the very beginning who now bill themselves as long time critics of the war:

WASHINGTON - Even some critics of President Bush's Iraq war policies are conceding there is evidence of recent improvements from a military standpoint. But Bush supporters and critics alike agree that these have not been matched by any noticeable progress on the political front. in Iraq, some in the United States:

… Two critics of Bush's recent handling of Iraq, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, both of the Brookings Institution, penned an op-ed opinion piece in The New York Times suggesting after a visit that "we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." They recommended Congress sustain the current troop buildup "at least into 2008."

Instead of the AP telling us that these are fake "war critics" who are billing themselves as that (probably on the White House payroll) so they can get this type of headline, the AP states point blank that they were war critics, as if this were a known fact.

And, damn him, Joe Biden bought into all of this last night on Kudlow & Co.

The great success of the surge they are all talking about is Anbar Province, where none of the surging soldiers went. We actually pulled troops from Anbar to support the surge. What's going on in Anbar is a temporary lull in the fight to throw out the Americans while the Sunnis consolidated the weaponry we've given them to fight the largely non-existent al Qaeda.