Winning, Losing, or Going Sideways?

The Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense is in progress. Already, though, headlines are being generated–and it’s not hard to spot the agenda behind those headlines.
The top headline on Yahoo News reads: “Gates Says U.S. Losing Iraq War.” Here is the screen shot; click to enlarge:

Only that’s not what Gates said. The Associated Press story that Yahoo News links to carries the milder headline, “Gates says U.S. is not winning Iraq war.” And if you read the story, you find that what Gates actually said is that “he believes the United States is neither winning nor losing, ‘at this point.'”
The “not winning” theme is likely to dominate news coverage; the New York Times headlines, “At Hearing, Gates Says U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq.” Here, too, if you keep reading you find that Gates said “the United States is not losing the war either.” But I’ll give you a nickel for every headline you can find that reads, “Gates says U.S. not losing in Iraq.”
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PAUL adds: It says a lot that Yahoo is more biased and less honest than AP.

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