Posted by Steven Zak

 "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Fuels Terror," read the front-page headline in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. The war in Iraq "has made global terrorism worse," reports the Times, "according to a sweeping assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies" in a classified government document.

And all this, says the Times, is according to "a government official familiar with the document."

In other words, the Times hasn't read it, doesn't know what it says, and doesn't have a clue whether the anonymous "official" has given an accurate or even unbiased read. But that doesn't stop them from making this the top headline story.

Agenda journalism? Naah.  

In the same Sunday edition, on the editorial page, the Times complained about the compromise reached between the McCain gang and the White House over what the Times calls the administration's "proposal to redefine Common Article 3" of the Geneva Convention concerning "cruel" and "degrading" treatment of terrorists. (Question: How can a terrorist be even more degraded as a human being than he has already chosen to be?) The Times describes the compromise as "tortured" and urges Democrats to "resist a stampede." In other words, the Times seems to be characterizing said compromise as a Bush steamroll job over McCain.

Yet two days earlier, the Times ran this front-page headline: "Bush Bows to Senators on Detainees" and described this as "a major concession to" the McCain gang. That headline must have been satisfying for them to run, since it says, essentially, "McCain wins, Bush forced to admit he's wrong."

Trouble is, as the Sunday editorial makes clear, the Times doesn't believe that assessment to be accurate.

But if only that headline and characterization were accurate, it would be bad for Bush. So even though they themselves didn't believe it, they ran it.