Two weeks ago the news coverage on the looting of the Baghdad Museum was hysterical, as reports claimed that the museum had been stripped of more or less its entire collection of 170,000 artifacts. Museum officials have now given American authorities a list of objects that are definitely known to be missing. As the New York Times puts it, in the understated style it favors when not attacking conservatives, "the losses seem to be less severe than originally thought."

In fact, museum authorities have now listed 29 items as missing, of which four have already been recovered. Leaving 25 pieces known to be stolen, which, as the American officer working with the museum says, is "not the same as 170,000."

The looting of nuclear materials joins the pillaging of the Baghdad Museum as a pseudo-crisis, trumpeted world-wide in the press, that fizzled out on closer inspection. But the correction will never catch up with the original story.

Yet ever since that moment, ever since the alleged looting of artifacts from the Baghdad museum, the administration has been criticized by Democrats for every mishap and temporary set-back that has occurred in a nation the size of California.

Let's see whether American media outlets other than the Washington Times will echo, or at least report, George's sentiments.