I think he may be on to something:

If you don’t see a spate of stories on U.S. casualties at the end of the month, then there must be some good news the MSM is ignoring…

(The) September numbers from Iraq are good news, no matter how you analyze it. Not only did the overall military death toll continue its decline, the number of troops killed by hostile fire was at its lowest level in fourteen months. So far this month, a total of 36 U.S. troops have been killed by enemy fire, the lowest total since July 2006, when 35 died.

Now, it’s hard to label good news the fact that any soldier has died overseas. But if the numbers were getting worse and not better, we’d for damned sure been reading about it in the newspapers rather than on Spook’s blog.

What about you? Wouldn’t you rather talk about Blackwater?

Speaking of terrorism and what we’re allowed to talk about, the NYT’s Tom Friedman has stepped out from behind the now-defunct Times $elect wall to ask us to just get over that whole 9/11 thing. Because of the tourism industry, apparently. And that bridge in Minnesota. And anyway, it was so, like years ago.

Which leads me to channel the Gipper thusly: Mr. Sulzberger, rebuild that wall!