Harry Reid's Allergic Reaction to the Surge

Howdy, JYB fans. I'm delighted to be guest-blogging this week. I'm a regular commenter over at Ace of Spades HQ, and have a little blog of my own that I've been running for about 6 months. Analytic by nature, I love plotting up data and posting graphs, so let's dive right in.

We all recall Harry Reid's intemperate words the week before last:

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid said.

It seems ridiculous on the face of it to base your assessment of the surge on one day of admittedly awful violence, particularly when the surge won't reach full strength until May or June. So let's look at the violence in Baghdad that Reid tells us snapped his faith and will to continue:

Awww, Harry. When you look at the data (taken from Iraq Coalition Casualities), you can see that if Harry had been making his decision one week earlier or one week later, the Dems might have a completely different policy toward Iraq.

Not likely, though, given that their policy is apparently based on their infallible feelings, without the need to resort to actual information.