Frequently, a careful reader of foreign policy coverage in the New York Times finds oneself confronted by a headline or lead paragraph which seems to be clearly contradicted by the article that follows. And, in such cases, it often appears that the contradicted claim bears a remarkable resemblance to the State Department line. Such examples would seem to be clear evidence of an editorial bias in favor of current U.S. government policies.

Case in point: an article below the byline of Alissa Rubin, "Oil Law Stalls in Iraq as Bomb Aims at Sheiks," in Monday's New York Times.

The lead paragraph cites the delay as a blow to "efforts to achieve national reconciliation." But as the article reports, the draft oil law in question is not about revenue-sharing, as many seem to believe, but about the "system for managing and developing Iraq's oil resources," including the very controversial question of the role of multinational oil companies.

Ethiopia has freed 38 opposition members sentenced to jail for treason, inciting violence and trying to overthrow the government, Reuters reports. The constitutional rights of the prisoners, who included elected legislators, were restored.

Human rights groups had complained that the trial was a politically motivated attempt to dismantle the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy after they made gains in the 2005 elections. Relatives of the prisoners had charged that U.S. advocacy for the prisoners was compromised by U.S. cooperation with and encouragement of Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia (which even the Ethiopian government conceded was a mistake.)

The Washington struggle over establishing a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq is once again in the headlines. Progress is being made in splitting off Republicans from the Bush Administration, but so far it's painfully slow. Meanwhile, President Bush sends more young Americans off to death and life-altering injury, and the Iraqi death toll climbs towards a million.

A striking fact about this situation is that if Republicans in Congress voted according to voter sentiment in their districts, there would be an overwhelming majority in Congress for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Almost all published polling on the withdrawal question is national. Very little published polling has been done on the basis of congressional districts. Such polling is relatively expensive, because it requires interviewing a lot more people.

As a result, a lot of people may not realize that when you have 7 in 10 Americans nationally supporting a timetable for withdrawal, as in a recent USA Today poll, that means that in the overwhelming majority of congressional districts, there is a clear majority for withdrawal, including in a majority of "Republican" districts.

An Ethiopian court sentenced 35 opposition politicians and activists to life in prison on Monday, AP reports. The prosecution had asked for the death penalty against the defendants, who included Ethiopia's top opposition leaders.

Those sentenced to life imprisonment include the leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Hailu Shawel; Berhanu Nega, who was elected mayor of Addis Ababa; former Harvard scholar Mesfin Woldemariam; and former U.N. special envoy and former Norfolk State University professor, Yacob Hailemariam.

Human rights groups condemned the trial as an attempt to silence government critics, and opposition leaders have claimed it was politically motivated.

Where is the U.S. State Department in all of this? Absent without leave.

The Guardian reports today that "the balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favor of military action" before President Bush leaves office. Not surprisingly, the Guardian attributes this shift to aggressive lobbying by Vice-President Cheney.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

So, the question of whether the United States attacks Iran before President Bush leaves office may boil down to this: how much capital will Dick Cheney have?

And this allows us to pose the question of Cheney's potential impeachment in a very practical way.

President Bush's press conference on Iraq - and the muted media reaction to some of President Bush's whoppers - shows that if we want to get out of Iraq, prevent war with Iran, and put a stop to further U.S. imperial misadventures among the many things we have to do is redouble our efforts to pound the hell out of mainstream media cheerleading for war.

A very useful tool for doing this is the new documentary "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," based on the book of the same name by media critic Norman Solomon. The film, narrated by Sean Penn, uses footage of the mainstream media coverage of war to demonstrate the following:

t's hard to say what was the biggest whopper that President Bush told yesterday about Iraq in his press conference. He lied about Al Qaeda, he lied about Iran, he lied about the benchmarks. But let's start with the first lie. President Bush claimed that it was Saddam Hussein and not the Bush Administration that chose war in 2003:

Bush: And now I'll be glad to answer a few questions, starting with Ms. Thomas.

Q Mr. President, you started this war, a war of your choosing, and you can end it alone, today, at this point - bring in peacekeepers, U.N. peacekeepers. Two million Iraqis have fled their country as refugees. Two million more are displaced. Thousands and thousands are dead. Don't you understand, you brought the al Qaeda into Iraq.

THE PRESIDENT: Actually, I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically. That's why I went to the United Nations and worked with the United Nations Security Council, which unanimously passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. That was the message, the clear message to Saddam Hussein. He chose the course.

Q Didn't we go into Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: It was his decision to make.

It may sound preposterous, but apparently Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, is claiming that the US and Europe have given Israel a green light to attack Iran. Israel Today reports:

Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday that he received the tacit blessing of Europe and the United States for an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. "If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the US will support us," Lieberman told Army Radio following a meeting earlier in the week with NATO and European Union officials...The message Lieberman said the NATO and EU officials conveyed to him is that Israel should "prevent the threat herself."

What's really bizarre is that this is not being reported in the U.S. There's nothing on the web sites of the New York Times or the Washington Post, not even a wire story. If our government is giving Israel a green light to attack Iran - an attack that would be interpreted in the region as endorsed by the United States, an attack that would use weapons supplied by the U.S. taxpayer, don't we have a right to know about that?