Let the Good News Flow

"Iraqis Begin Voting After Rocket Blast Strikes U.S. Embassy" read the four-column front-page headline in yesterday's New York Times. In the print edition, the lead story, by Dexter Filkins, bore the headline "2 Are Killed--More Attacks Are Vowed." Another front-page story, by John F. Burns, was titled "The Vote, and Democracy Itself, Leave Anxious Iraqis Divided." The only good news to be found above the fold was a piece by Marc Santora: "U.S. is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants, Officials Say." When it came to Iraq, the paper was playing the same old familiar dirge.

Readers must've felt as if they'd gone through a time warp if they picked up their paper Sunday morning after watching the news on television. In scenes unimaginable only two years ago--and unimaginable to the press's professional pessimists two days ago--millions of ordinary Iraqi men and women braved terrorist violence and came out to vote in their first free election.