Does Anybody Believe Petraeus?

CNN reports:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told reporters Wednesday that sectarian murders in Baghdad have been reduced by about one-third since the beginning of the year.

Talk about throwing a hanging curveball to a liberal blogger.

So, as I readied to put the wood to this nonsense, I decided to run over to the Newshog blog where I had earlier seen a link to a piece on how the Iraqi government was withholding civilian death statistics from the UN. And damn if I didn't find that Cernig had already kicked, stomped and shredded Petraeus' talking point in a much more succinct fashion than I ever could.

Here's what Cernig wrote:

Still, I wish some on the Hill would do their homework. When Petreaus told them sectarian deaths in Baghdad were a third of pre-surge reates, I wish someone had asked about overall death rates including suicide bombs (which aren't counted as sectarian). Most counts say overall deaths have hardly dipped at all despite the flood of troops - but it's difficult to be sure since the Iraqi government refuses to release the official figures. Convenient, eh?

And to all 5 of my readers --- if you aren't reading Newshog everyday, you really should. When they go big, I'll be writing a post titled, "I Was Reading Them When ..."