Jeff Jacoby gets it right in the Boston Globe, contrary to the foot soldiers of Democratic Party spin. By foot soldiers, I meant specifically those sources dismissed by Jacoby:

The New York Times (``Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat") and The Washington Post (``Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting US Terror Fight")

You might have thought I was referring to those other foot soldiers of spin, partisan enemies of President Bush within the CIA.

Either way, the foot soldiers show an appalling lack of honor and honesty. Again, quoting Jacoby:

The Times and Post stories were written, it appears, by reporters who hadn't read the document they were characterizing. The papers' headlines were unequivocal, but the stories themselves never actually quoted the NIE. They merely passed along the spin -- and advanced the anti-Bush agenda -- of the anonymous sources who chose this moment to leak secret intelligence for political purposes.

Jot this down in the Spinmeister Playbook. When confronted with the obvious failure of your position, the hollowness of your strategy to sway the public to your point of view, make every effort to characterize the evidence for your failure as proof of your success.

Black is white and white is black.

When your opponents (enemies) try to expose your duplicity and reveal the spin, turn their accusations against them, repeat your assertions, and wait.

The press will continue to craft stories that support your storyline.

Jacoby actually read the key judgments of the declassified NIE, and echoes what it actually concludes:

After 9/11, the United States went to war against Islamic totalitarianism; since 2003 that war has focused most dramatically on Iraq. It stands to reason that Iraq is therefore the focal point in the jihadis' war against the West. President Bush has made that point repeatedly, quoting Osama bin Laden's declaration that the war in Iraq is ``the most serious issue today for the whole world " and will end in ``victory and glory or misery and humiliation." Has US military action in Iraq inflamed the global jihad? Undoubtedly. But just imagine how galvanized it would be by a US retreat.

Not that matters to the Democratic foot soldiers at the CIA, Washington Post, or the NY Times. “Bush made more terrorists! Bush made more terror! Iraq was a horrible mistake! Cut and run now!”

That’s an Intelligence Estimate of a kind I suppose, but I’d estimate it’s about 5% Intelligence. The rest is all DNC Talking Points.