IRAQ NOW HAS A CONSTITUTION. Over at OxBlog, David Adesnik looks at weekend doomsaying by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post, and observes:

So, did the NYT report today that Friday’s “major embarrassment” didn’t materialize? Or that Paul Bremer has been successful in encouraging Iraqis to work together? And what about the WaPo? Did it report that the Shi’ites’ compromise is an indication of how ethnic and religious divisions may not be as profound as originally thought?

Since those were all rhetorical questions, I won’t bother telling you the answers. The fact is that professional journalists have a remarkable habit of overlooking their own short-sightedness. Unsurprisingly, the same correspondents at the Times (Dexter Filkins) and the Post (Rajiv Chandrasekaran) covered both the Shi’ite walkout on Friday and the Shi’ite compromise earlier today. Their coverage demonstrates how committed both men are (subconsciously, I think ) to telling the story of how America is going to fail in Iraq. Of course, it’s hard to tell a consistent story when the facts keep getting in the way.

Yes. Now that the good news is getting hard to deny or ignore, we’ll start hearing that things are actually a lot worse than they look on the surface. Note, however, the lack of interest in looking beneath the surface back when the surface could be presented as bad.

Adesnik also engages in a bit of I-told-you-so directed at Josh Marshall. It’s undignified, but I suppose it’s irresistible under the circumstances.