ANDREW SULLIVAN PUTS THE WAR ON TERROR INTO PERSPECTIVE and concludes that it's "an extraordinary success".

"Now watch the media do all it can to accentuate the negative", he adds.

Meanwhile, Rod Dreher has a column on that very subject in the Dallas Morning News, and adds:

I've been getting great e-mails all day from around the country over my DMN column whacking the media for ignoring the good news out of Iraq. One of my correspondents was Mark Tapscott at the Heritage Foundation, who sends along results of a Gallup poll released today. The poll surveyed the confidence Americans had in their institutions. The military got the highest rating, with 75 percent of those polled expressing a "great deal" of confidence, while only five percent saying they had "very little or none" in the military. Compare that with TV news, in which 30 percent of respondents report a "great deal" of confidence, and a nearly equal number reporting "very little or none." It's not much better for newspapers: 30 percent have a "great deal" of confidence, while 25 percent have "very little or none."

The U.S. military, then, is the most popular institution in America. The news media are among the least popular.

UPDATE: John Hawkins also has some thoughts on the topic.