I am very confused about what is happening in South Korea as our under-beloved leader pays a visit.  On one hand, you have Reuters with the headline: Bush arrives in Seoul, anti-U.S. protest fizzles.

U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in South Korea on Tuesday for talks focused on communist North Korea and was greeted by a minor protest aimed mostly at his host instead of a big anti-U.S. rally that had been expected.
In a surprise boost for Bush, who has largely managed to set aside prickly issues with Seoul, it was a rally in the city centre in support of what is likely to be his last visit to East Asia as president that ended up attracting a huge crowd.

"I came to pray for the country to come together and with President Bush coming, for his visit to go smoothly," Lim Ji-young, 23, said against a background of gospel music at the pro-U.S. prayer rally of an estimated 15,000 people.

There was little sign of the widespread anger that had sparked weeks of mass anti-government protests after President Lee Myung-bak agreed to completely end a ban on U.S. beef imports, which had been barred five years earlier over mad cow disease concerns.

Some 20,000 police have been mobilized for the Bush visit and easily outnumbered a few hundred anti-Bush protesters who were dispersed with a brief burst of water cannon.

That doesn't seem so bad.  What's a "brief" burst of water aimed at a "few hundred" protesters?

But then I came across the AP's headline: Police fire water cannon at Bush protesters.

Police fired water cannons at thousands of protesters Tuesday as President Bush got a volatile reception in South Korea at the start of his three-nation Asian trip.

...

As evening approached, an estimated 20,000 anti-Bush protesters gathered nearby. Police turned water cannons on them as they tried to move onto the main central downtown boulevard, telling the crowd that the liquid contained markers to tag them so they could be identified later.

"I don't have anti-U.S. sentiment. I'm just anti-Bush and anti-Lee Myung-bak," said Uhm Ki-woong, 36, a businessman who was wearing a mask and hat like other demonstrators in an apparent attempt to conceal his identity.

The anti-Bush crowd dwindled later in the evening to several thousand people, with the hard-core remnants turning aggressive. Protesters shattered the windows of a police bus and authorities responded by again firing water cannons.

About 70 demonstrators were arrested, police said, in addition to another 12 near the military airport where Bush landed.

How does a rally dwindle to "several thousand" people when Reuters only says there were a "few hundred" at all?  And how can more than 80 demonstrators be arrested when Reuters could only verify that one of their cameramen saw about 12 people get taken into custody?

As someone who took part in anti-war rallies before the Iraq invasion that were significantly diminished by the press as they sounded the drumbeat to war, I can't help but marvel at how these wire services march to the beat of two clearly divergent drummers.