Following Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's statement that the Iraq War had been lost -- a sentiment shared by most Americans and one that, unfortunately, is probably correct -- the folks at the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call (subscription required) did a little reporting to see where Reid's caucus stood on his comments. Under the headline "Caucus Stands by Reid", John Stanton writes:

Despite persistent attacks from the White House and Congressional Republicans over his stance on the Iraq War, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has continued to enjoy strong support from his colleagues and has kept his ideologically diverse Senate Democratic Caucus together even as his House counterparts have struggled to do so.

[...]

Privately, Democrats said that while Reid's comments may not get ringing endorsements from his colleagues, there is an understanding that his increasingly tough rhetoric is driven by a personal conviction.

Apparently, the White House did not like this and other reporting that showed Senate Democrats largely united on the issue of Iraq. According to a source close to Capitol Hill granted anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject, a number of reporters were called into the White House and browbeaten by administration staff, who wanted articles highlighting divisions within the Democratic ranks. Not long after, The Politico's John Bresnahan and Carrie Budoff posted the following story on the newspaper's website under the headline, "Dems fail to back Reid's 'Iraq war lost'":

Several leading Democrats said this week that they did not agree with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent statement that "the war is lost" in Iraq, even while they support his broader message.

But they did agree that Reid's wording was clumsy and potentially damaging. Even the Nevada Democrat himself appeared to be backing away from his remark.

By now it is becoming quite painfully clear what the modus operandi of The Politico is. Regardless of what the real story is -- in this case, that there remains a striking level of near-unanimity on the issue of the Iraq War within the Senate Democratic caucus -- The Politico is willing to piece together a few quotes and run with an administration meme that distracts from the truth.

This is not the first time that The Politico has decided to carry water for the Bush White House rather than actually striving for journalistic objectivity. For instance, just about a month after the paper went into production, it ran with a fairly baseless story that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not living up to her promise of running an open House of Representatives -- despite the fact that, as I noted at the time, Pelosi had already allowed as many open rules on non-appropriations legislation during the first two months of the Congress as the Republicans had during the entirety of the 109th Congress. Similarly, during the period in which the Democrats were formulating their strategy for extricating American military forces out of Iraq, The Politico gave the Republicans and the Bush administration the greatest gift they could have asked for by labeling the Democratic tactics as a slow bleed, thus not only running with a White House meme but actually crafting a meme for the right wing. And these are far from the only examples.

Now is it true that when asked on the record if they would use the same words as Reid his fellow Democratic Senators would say "no"? Apparently. (Though the part about Reid distancing himself from his own statements are far from the truth.) But that obscures the greater truth of the story, which Roll Call -- a newspaper that has been in the business significantly longer than The Politico and is more dedicated to actually getting stories correct than getting their name on the cable news talking head shows -- gets correctly. The fact of the matter is that despite minor disagreements over rhetoric that may make for good copy, Senate Democrats are remarkably united on the issue of the Iraq War.