A new low in broadcast journalism? – UPDATED

Ed Morrissey has the tape and the right response.

We’ve known for a while that journalists have lost the ability to make fine distinctions. Now, some of them can’t make broad one’s either?

Someone wrote to me last night that Anderson Cooper had done a really good job – that he was forceful in reminding viewers that without coalition troops Saddam would still be in power. The writer gave props to Cooper saying (I’m paraphrasing, from memory) “this execution and what it means for Iraq is bigger than hating Bush…” Cooper, he said, understood that.

Some others, apparently do not.

Some commenters at CQ wonder if this was a cold reading on the anchor’s part, or if he wrote the copy himself. Good question. Seems to me though, that if you can think fast on your feet, even if you see the word “assassination” coming at you, and you know it should be “execution” or even “death” you should be able to catch it.

But I could be wrong. Some J-school grad can hopefully clue me in. But Ed basically gives thumbs down to much of the coverage of Saddam’s death…and his life, too. He writes here:

It wasn’t just the execution coverage that was a joke; it was the entire coverage of Saddam Hussein, going back to Eason Jordan’s deal with the devil that kept their Baghdad bureau open. The last 24 hours just confirms their soullessness. (via Memeorandum).

Me? I think when you can’t get on the same page about whether whether an execution is an assassination, then partisans have moved way beyond talking past each other and have decided to simply embrace “alternate realities”…which is what the dictatorship of relativism brings you to, eventually.

What was it Chesterton said…something about…”if you believe in nothing, you can make yourself believe anything.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile – while I wouldn’t go so far as to say the left is “mourning” Hussein’s death, Gateway Pundit has a round up that suggests that their Bush hate does play into their feelings. I’ve wondered several times over the past few days, what they’d be writing if only a President Clinton, Gore or Kerry had presided over the capture, trial and execution of Saddam Hussein and all that has come since/during. I imagine their posts would be quite different. Perhaps they’re not “mourning” Saddam…they’re just sulking because the president behind it all has an R after his name, instead of a D. That’s sad.

Also, I think the Newsbusters folks are not understanding Dennis Miller’s excellent snark, here. He said:

Let’s see, maybe it’s time for a Democratic president. Stay with me. Because the next step in the inevitable escalation in this war with radical Islam is going to involve us being appreciably more brutal and ruthless than we have been to date. And I think the left’s cronyism with the mainstream media will provide cover for someone on that side of things to up the ante.

He makes a valid point: A Democrat president could get away with all the stuff President Bush has done, is doing and wants to do to fight Islamofascism, because the (89% Registered Democrat) press will work for that president, instead of against him…or her. Come on, now…do you really think the NY Times would have done the Plame dance, or leaked the NSA and SWIFTBANKS stories if a Democrat had been leading the charge? Quite the contrary…if a President Clinton, Gore or Kerry had taken on this fight, appreciably weakened AlQ, gotten Libya to give up their WMD, nailed Hussein and helped Iraq become sovereign, AND kept the economy running at full steam, the press would be urging the purchase of TNT for an additional head on Mt. Rushmore. They’d be toasting the “humanitarian president” who freed women from oppression and helped shape the middle east into a democracy, etc, etc, etc…hell…they’d be endorsing oil drilling in ANWR.

So maybe Miller is right…but now…how do we find a Democrat we can really, really trust to sincerely want to fight Islamofascism. You know, someone who MEANS it. And who the press hasn’t turned on, like Joe Lieberman…