Glenn Reynolds: Blackwater controversies prove Iraq is "safer than you think."

Leave it to Putz to turn a story about overzealous mercanaries run amok in Iraq into media-bashing gold:

LOOKING AT THE NEW YORK TIMES' ARTICLE ON BLACKWATER, A SURPRISING DISCOVERY: Iraq is a lot safer that you might think:

I don't know about you, but I find those figures – both for Blackwater and DynCorp – staggering, even allowing for the fact that there must be other incidents where convoys come under attack, but keep going without returning fire.

I was under the impression that every time a convoy left the Green Zone it was like the scene in Mad Max II where the fuel tanker (no spoilers in case you haven't seen it) driven by Max leaves the good guys' compound. I pictured insurgents leaping off buildings on to the roofs of SUVs, IEDs going off left, right and centre, and suicide car bombs and RPGs coming from every direction.

Where did I get this impression? From watching the TV news and reading the mainstream news websites. It's almost as if… as if… the media is exaggerating how bad things are in Iraq!

Read the whole thing. It reminds me of when the Soviets used to show newsreels of Vietnam protests as evidence of how bad things were in America, only to have the audience think, "hey, everybody in these films has new shoes!"

Here's a few of yesterday's exaggerations:

HUNDREDS DEAD AND WOUNDED IN WAVE OF VIOLENCE IN IRAQ

McClatchy reports that a wave of bombings shook Iraq on Wednesday. In double bombing in the Baghdad market of Baya` left 32 dead and nearly that many wounded. From Sinjar in the north to Basra in the south, the country seemed consumed in a paroxysm of violence.

Reuters reports that on Wednesday,

' BAGHDAD - Two car bombs killed 32 people and wounded 28 shortly before dusk in Bayaa, a mainly Shi'ite district in southwestern Baghdad, police said. . .

SHIRQAT - Two car bombs killed seven people and wounded five in the town of Shirqat, 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The first one targeted a police patrol in a crowded market and the second exploded near a police station.

MOSUL - A suicide truck bomber targeting a court under construction killed three workers and wounded 47 others in Mosul, 390 kilometers (240 miles) north of Baghdad, Nineveh police chief Major-General Wathiq al-Hamadani said. '