First example: Today the L.A. Times runs a story titled Cheney’s assertions of lives saved is hard to prove. The deck headline reads: “Arguing against Obama’s policies, he says that the Bush administration’s approach to terrorism spared ‘perhaps hundreds of thousands.’ Experts say no evidence of that has emerged.”

The story is very weak to begin with. Cheney said that Bush administration policies were effective against al Qaeda; that effectiveness saved lives; the number of lives saved could be in the thousands and could “perhaps” be in the hundreds of thousands. The experts in the story (both of whom I have written for comment) don’t contradict this; instead, they merely say it’s hard to prove. Not mentioned: the fact that Obama is sitting on the proof, which wouldn’t help the terrorists (even as he releases details of techniques, which does help them).

Meanwhile, as reader Dana points out, The Times reported President Obama’s recent claim that Guantanamo Bay’s prison “likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.”