WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: G-8 Leaders Agree: More Rosy Platitudes, Empty Statements Needed. Well, they’ve got the supply. . . .

Plus, decoding the spin:

For the New York Times, the desire to make President Obama look good and the journalistic need to whomp up some drama led to a story line about “pressure” being put on Germany’s Angela Merkel to shift to a more accommodative, ‘pro-growth’ path. No doubt she is under pressure, but did peer pressure or anything else at the G-8 change her mind? The Times story tries hard to make it look as if something was going on, but close reading of the story shows no movement in Merkel’s position from her first meeting with Hollande and the final communique simply repeats the usual bilge. Judging from the quotes in the piece, the best headline would have been “Merkel Rejects Obama Plea for Change in German Policy”, but the misleading and vacuous “World Leaders Urge Growth, Not Austerity” struck the Times as a happier way to go. (The biggest piece of drama in the story, President Putin’s decision to stay home, sending only his number two prime minister Medvedev, was largely passed over.)

So typical.