O'Hanlon contradicted himself about Iraq

Despite the fact that they only visited selected Sunni areas during their stay to Iraq, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack wrote in the New York Times this week that the situation in Iraq was getting better.  As the traditional media concluded, O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, so he must know what he is talking about, right?

Actually, as Matthew Yglesias noted in Thursday's LA Times, O'Hanlon's findings contradicted what the Brookings Institution reported about Iraq on July 23rd:

It reported July 23 that "violence nationwide has failed to improvemeasurably over the past two-plus months," and that -- contrary totheir enthusiasm about the provision of electricity and otheressentials -- "the average person in Baghdad can count on only one ortwo hours of electricity per day," far less than they had underHussein. More ironically still, the person in charge of the Iraq Indexis none other than Michael O'Hanlon!

One big difference though: the NYT column received a load of media attention and the one that reported a less rosy picture did not.  Some liberal bias!