Wednesday's lead story by Helene Cooper, Thom Shanker, and Dexter Filkins surveyed the firestorm over Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, who made disrespectful comments about administration officials to a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine: "General's Job Is in Doubt In Exposing Afghan Rifts - McChrystal Called In to Explain Remarks Contemptuous of Other Officials [1]."
But besides the specific concerns raised by the article of an Afghanistan war council in disarray, the Times quickly - paragraph three of the print version - worked in more general anti-war talking points:
The firestorm was fueled by increasing doubts - even in the military - that Afghanistan can be won and by crumbling public support for the nine-year war as American casualties rise. And the remarks also laid bare the disarray and enmity in a foreign policy team that is struggling with the war.
Not to be flip, but American casualties are always going to rise as opposed to decline; it's a cumulative number, not an average over time. And the Times doesn't back up its assertion of "crumbling public support" for the war. The latest polling data [2] does show a slow decline in U.S. enthusiasm for the war, but "crumbling" overstates the case.