Seattle Times Left of New York Times and Arab Networks?

Here's The New York Times tonight:

MMAN, Jordan, Jan. 30 - Sometime after the first insurgent attack in Iraq this morning, news directors at Arab satellite channels and newspaper editors found themselves facing an altogether new decision: should they report on the violence, or continue to cover the elections themselves?

After close to two years of providing up-to-the-minute images of explosions and mayhem, and despite months of predictions of a bloodbath on election day, some news directors said they found the decision surprisingly easy to make. The violence simply was not the story this morning; the voting was.

Overwhelmingly, Arab channels and newspapers greeted the elections as a critical event with major implications for the region, and many put significant resources into reporting on the vote, providing blanket coverage throughout the country that started about a week ago. Newspapers kept wide swaths of their pages open, and the satellite channels dedicated most of the day to coverage of the polls.

Here's The Seattle Times tonight:

Iraqis cast their votes, despite attacks

Insurgents seeking to wreck the vote struck polling stations with a string of suicide bombings and mortar strikes, killing at least 44 people.

Military plane crashes; casualties unknown

Unity of Shiite alliance faces challenges

AP video: Rocket hits U.S. embassy

When the New York Times and Arab networks are more upbeat than the Seattle Times then something is indeed rotten in McDermott/latte-land.