More lies to help the other side...(Or, Sweden down the Memory Hole)

From PowerLine:

The top headline on Yahoo News reads: "Gates Says U.S. Losing Iraq War." Here is the screen shot; click to enlarge:

Only that's not what Gates said. The Associated Press story that Yahoo News links to carries the milder headline, "Gates says U.S. is not winning Iraq war." And if you read the story, you find that what Gates actually said is that "he believes the United States is neither winning nor losing, 'at this point.'"

The "not winning" theme is likely to dominate news coverage; the New York Times headlines, "At Hearing, Gates Says U.S. Not Winning War in Iraq." Here, too, if you keep reading you find that Gates said "the United States is not losing the war either."...

Question: does the Old media want us to lose the Iraq Campaign?

Short answer: Yes. But they imagine losing will be like losing was in Vietnam. That is, a big moment of triumph for Democrats and for the NYT, with all those millions who get murdered and imprisoned safely off-stage, where the American people can't see them.

(Bear with me my brethren for covering ground I've been over before, but I'm right in the middle of this nootziness. I'm confronted with it every day. I'm in a city where 83% of the population thought that John Kerry—poster boy of 70's fossilization—was a good choice for President! I've got to vent a bit.)

To the Left, every war is Vietnam. And I'm not talking about a metaphor or something. More like a dementia. They really believe it. Remember how two of the most splendid lightning-victories in our history—the overthrow of the Taliban and the 3-week blitzkrieg through Iraq—were both labeled as quagmires! Within mere days!

It's lunacy, and also part of a larger lunacy—the derangement involved in trying to preserve a world-view that gelled around 1973. Preserve it even though the world has in fact changed drastically, and that world-view no longer corresponds with reality. Mark Steyn caught the outlook perfectly, as the idea that everything is going to become like Sweden. Younger people may find this hard to grasp, but trust me, I was there. It was a commonplace in the 60's and 70's that the Swedes, and other Euro-socialists, had figured it all out, and it was only a matter of time before us primitivo Americans would shed our coarse old ideas and move Swedenwards, as "progressive" types already had.

And we humans always want to display our inner selves in our outward appearance. Back then the emblem was to drive a Volvo or a Saab (plus guilt-free sex, wearing clogs and eating Blix).

But funny thing, the Symbolic Volvo has been traded in for a symbolic Prius. Yet the change has not been publicly remarked upon, at least not that I've heard. No Leftist admits to dumping Sweden down the Memory Hole, sort of like the memory of an old girl-friend from ones college days. Sweden has obviously failed as a model to emulate, but nobody's talking about it. That has to be extracting a psychological toll. It is massive denial.

What does Jane Liberal think, as she drives around in the tired rusty Volvo station wagon she can't afford to trade in for a Prius? I can't even imagine what she thinks, I doubt it's thinking at all. Just crazy anger, and BUSH is to blame!