Frank Warner summarizes the incredible prevalence of the phrase “increasingly unpopular war” in recent reporting, but notes that polling over the same period refutes the tone and smug editorializing in these pieces:

News stories written between Aug. 20 and Sept. 12 are demonstrably wrong if they used the “increasingly unpopular war” phrase. An Aug. 18-20 poll showed American support for the war at 35 percent. By Sept. 12-13, support rose a stunning 16 percent! In case the math ain’t clear, even with the margin of error, that’s increasing popularity.

Amazing. If only our media could maintain some kind of objectivity, the deeper truth that might belie their own prejudices and ignorance. Warner himself fairly hallucinates the following:

I can’t wait to see the corrections, retractions and apologies by Wallsten, Feldman, Ferraro, Kornblut, Sandalow and all the others who carelessly used the boilerplate phrase.

And then I can’t wait to see the stories by Wallsten, Feldman, Ferraro, Kornblut, Sandalow and the others reporting new events in the context of the “increasingly popular Iraq war.”

Hope for our troops. How will it feel to read that in a news story? Our enemies will be discouraged. Our troops will love it. I’ll check today’s papers to see if it’s there yet.

Go read the whole thing.

(H/T Instapundit)