Temp Plummets in Hell As the NYT Lead Story Documents Progress In Iraq

Hell must be positively icy at the moment. The NYT has as their lead a story that goes to lengths to document what all but NYT and a few other followers of the MSM have known for some time now. The surge has worked to significantly pacify Iraq. And the large exhale we hear from Baghdad, courtesy of the NYT, is, if you listen close, likely to be followed by an equally large inhale from the collective members of the Democrat Party who are still intent on legislating defeat in Iraq:

Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves

Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad.

Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees.

“I feel happy,” she said, standing in her bedroom, between a flowered bedspread and a bullet hole in the wall. “But my happiness is not complete. We need more people to come back. We need more people to feel safe.”

Mrs. Aasan, 45, a Shiite librarian with an easy laugh, is living at the far end of Baghdad’s tentative recovery. She is one of many Iraqis who in recent weeks have begun to test where they can go and what they can do when fear no longer controls their every move.

The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says. . .

Read the story here. There are plenty of "buts" and "ifs" thrown in - this is the NYT after all. And in all fairness to the NYT, there should be a few "buts" and "ifs." We have taken a huge step towards stabilizing Iraq, but there is a long way to go. Still, for the NYT to go this far in acknowledging success is going to be very problematic for Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, and company. This is the time for as big a push as possible in terms of diplomacy and aid. The Republicans should be taking the lead - and taking the Democrats to task for continuing to legislate defeat rather than working to capitalize on the vastly improved security situation.