President Bush put a positive spin on Thursday’s vote, issuing a statement that the Cabinet “will represent the unity and diversity” of the country as it begins the work of drafting a new constitution, fighting terrorism and ensuring basic services for its citizens.

Uh, excuse me? “Put a positive spin”? You mean he actually sounded optimistic about all of the positive things that have been going on in Iraq over the last 24 months? Heaven forfend!

Remember, folks, last month (March 20) marked two years since we crossed the border. The two year anniversary of Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” carrier landing won’t be until this next Sunday, May 1st. Less than two years from a standing start to a working government, and she tries to make it seem like Bush had to put a spin on this to sound excited about the progress being made. Why not just tell the raw truth, and let people hear what’s really going on for once, alright?

Moving on… (again)

The 185 lawmakers assembled behind the blast walls and sandbags of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone voted by a show of hands, approving the list by 180 votes. A bouquet of flowers filled the seat of one absent lawmaker — Lamia Abed Khadouri al-Sakri, a Shiite Muslim legislator gunned down in her home the previous day.

She’s trying to make it sound like these guys are under mortar fire while they hold their candle-lit meetings in underground bunkers. Meanwhile, sniper fire is picking off the pages, one by one, and some poor grunt (who you know is gonna die in the second reel) is frantically trying to crank the radiotelephone to call in an airstrike.

However, she is forced to actually report the vote count. Reading it as it stands sounds impressive enough, 180 out of 185. But bear with me for a moment, for something about her phrasing (”by 180 votes") reminded me of an old math puzzle:

Johnny bought a notebook and a pencil for $1.00. The notebook was 90 cents more than the pencil. How much did the pencil cost?

Y’see, a lot of people would automatically glance at the puzzle, pick up on the relevant facts, misread a part of it, and arrive at the answer of “10 cents”, but that would be wrong. Y’see the puzzle didn’t say that the notebook cost 90 cents. It said that it cost 90 cents more than the pencil. Short version, they were 95 cents and 5 cents, respectively.

Back to our oh-so-fair-and-balanced author, she didn’t say that it won with 180 votes.

She said it won BY 180 votes.

So what was the vote total?

Anyhow, go see if you can find more examples as you SPOT. THE. BIAS.