This is mendacious even by FOX News standards.

Reporter Courtney Keely reports from Baghdad to tell us that the surge is working. "It is exciting to be walking through a marketplace in Baghdad, something I've never been able to do!" she says, with all the vacuity of a tourist. Never mind the phalanx of American troops guarding her, the Blackhawk helicopters providing cover overhead, or the fact that the Iraqis she speaks to tell her that the market itself has too few people as is a total failure. What matters is that she's able to walk through Baghdad wearing a flak jacket and helmet! Just like a stroll at any American farmer's market! And it's exciting!

(Via Crooks and Liars).

An open thread over at Kos points us to this documentary from the Guardian UK. It's difficult to believe that anyone could watch this and not come to the conclusion that our continuing occupation of Iraq can only bring less stability and greater resentment among Iraqis -- that, indeed, there is no military solution in Iraq.

But if there is one thing the last seven years have taught us, it's that there remains a significant percentage of people who will adhere to the rhetoric that comes out of their own mouths no matter the reality they observe with their own eyes.

An outsized proportion of such people, not incidentally, occupy seats in Congress.

Gen. John Batiste “has been asked to leave his position as a consultant to CBS News” over a new VoteVets ad criticizing the Iraq war, Think Progress reports. His interview with Keith Olbermann is worth watching:

(Via Atrios.)