Picking Reality, or Picking Cherries?

Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein ripped apart a New York Times op-ed from yesterday that proclaimed the overall security situation was improving.  Klein pointed out that the two writers cherry-picked, as they only visited Sunni areas during their trip to Iraq:

One thing I just realized--Pollack and Hanlon seem to have visitedonly Sunni areas--Ramadi, Tal Afar and Mosul, the Ghazaliyaneighborhood on the west (Sunni) bank of the Tigris River. And that'swhere the progress, such as it is, has been made, with the tribesmoving against the jihadis and toward us. But Iraq is primarily aShi'ite country--and we're not doing so well with those guys,especially the most prominent of them, Muqtada al-Sadr.

I should also note that their optimism about the Iraqi Army mightlook a bit different if they went to mixed areas like Diyala province,where a corrupt Shi'ite-dominated Army is going to have to deal with apolice force that is being recruited from former Sunni insurgents.There certainly are a few excellent, mixed units in the Iraqi SecurityForces, but the majority of units are local, sect-specific and awful.

The 25% that still approve of Bush's Iraq policy can continue to believe what they want.  But for a member of a respected group like the Brookings Institution to ignore the Shiite part of the equation reeks of investigative carelessness.