Nice timing

Trying to use daily stock market movements as an instrument to bash Barack Obama hasn't worked out very well for conservatives. Using Iraq is not so good either --

A Dog Not Barking [Jay Nordlinger]

Friends, have you read much about Iraq lately? I mean, in the news, and in the opinion columns (assuming there is a distinction)? For years, Iraq dominated our news and our commentary. But I have seen very few items about Iraq in recent weeks, or months.

Is it because George W. Bush is no longer president? Was Iraq simply a club with which to beat a hated president? (Hated by many who give us the news.) Is it that the Iraq War has been — dare we use the word — won? But weren’t we promised that the Iraq War was unwinnable?

Today's Iraq news --

BAGHDAD – Suicide bomb blasts tore through crowds waiting for food aid in central Baghdad and inside a roadside restaurant filled with Iranian pilgrims Thursday, killing at least 78 people in Iraq's deadliest day in more than a year.

The toll — at least 31 dead in Baghdad and 47 to the north in Diyala province — follows a series of high-profile attacks this month blamed on Sunni insurgents. The violence highlights potential security gaps as Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead role from U.S. forces in protecting Baghdad and key areas around the capital.

Today's other Iraq news --

BAGHDAD – At least 87,215 Iraqis have been killed in violence since 2005, according to a previously undisclosed Iraqi government tally obtained by The Associated Press. Combined with tallies based on hospital sources and media reports since the beginning of the war and a review of available evidence by the AP, the figures show that more than 110,000 Iraqis have died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

The Health Ministry death tally, provided by a government official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the data, counts deaths from the beginning of 2005 until Feb. 28. It excludes thousands of people who are missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official notice.

One definition of an "unwinnable" war might arise from a cost-benefit analysis looking at the number of locals that get killed "winning" it.

UPDATE: Nordlinger acknowledges his bad timing but then agrees that the real good news from Iraq is the arrest of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi -- without acknowledging the mystery of how the Iraqis are detaining an imaginary figure. Who's been paying attention to news from Iraq?