Remind Me Again, Why Dan Rather Lost His Job

I was astonished last night to watch CNN anchor Lou Dobbs last night, just after 6 pm East Coast time. In the midst of an alleged news story about the Italian journalist and intelligence officers shot by trigger-happy U.S. troops at a checkpoint in Baghdad, he decided to do a little editorializing about her newspaper’s political slant:

Well, the Italian journalist works for a communist newspaper that is highly critical of U.S. policy in Iraq. The shooting incident and the journalist’s remarks have sharply increased anti-American feelings in Italy. Italy, of course, is a key ally of this country in Iraq.

Kitty Pilgrim has the report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Italy, there was a full state funeral for the Italian secret service agent shot in Iraq. He used his body to shield the Italian journalist who had just been freed. Ten thousand people paid their respects, but some seek to turn the tragedy into a political statement, and protests have erupted.

NILE GARDINER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: It is a great shame that the far left in Italy is seeking to exploit this recent human tragedy in order to try to build a wedge between Italy and the United States, two very close allies in Iraq and in the broader war on terror.

PILGRIM: The left-wing accusations have gotten out of control. The communist paper the journalist worked for, “IL Manifesto,” ran headlines accusing U.S. forces of “assassinating” the Italian secret serviceman. Since the incident, the journalist has stepped up her verbal attack on U.S. forces.

As Pilgrim probably knows–and why is a CNN correspondent editorializing about “out of control left-wing accusations” anyway?–the word “assassinate” in Romance languages like Italian has a slightly different meaning than it does in English. A closer translation would be “murdered,” and unless you take the Pentagon at its word (!), it’s certainly a possibility.

MATTHEW FELLING, CTR. FOR MEDIA & PUBLIC AFFAIRS: If you look back at the reports that she filed, she’s called Americans criminals, and that what we’re doing in Iraq is nothing short of a massacre. So when someone steps forward like this and has some criticism for the American forces, you’re tempted not to give it 100 percent believability.

PILGRIM: Fantastically, some claim the United States forces fired on the car because Italy is said to have paid some $8 million in ransom money for the release of the woman, and that goes against state coalition policy, something the State Department denied today.

More editorializing: “fantastically”? What if it turns out to be true? After all, the United States started out the war on terror by deliberately dropping a 500-pound bomb on Al Jazeera’s Kabul bureau, supposedly because the attack killed a leading Al Qaeda figure who hung out there. As a wag at the New York Times wrote, the same man was killed again several weeks later. It may or may not be true that the U.S. deliberately tried to kill the Italians. Reporters should let the facts speak for themselves as they become available, not try to guess what they think may or may not have happened.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: There’s absolutely no shred of truth to the idea that we somehow we did this on purpose.

PILGRIM: Protesters are pressuring the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who has committed 3,000 troops on the ground in Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PILGRIM: Now, a White House spokesman today called the incident an accident. A full U.S. investigation is under way in cooperation with Italian authorities. And in the meantime, Italian officials are not denying that a ransom was paid. That perhaps something they would not like investigated too closely — Lou.

DOBBS: Now, while this is a tragic shooting, it’s remarkable that there is not just a simple statement that is an idiotic charge by a communist newspaper that is obviously making great political capital, if you will, out of this tragedy.

“Idiotic charges”? Were you at that checkpoint, Lou? If not, shut the fuck up. You don’t know squat.

PILGRIM: They certainly have an agenda in making these statements, yes.

DOBBS: And interestingly enough, the national media in this country has not put in context “Il Manifesto,” the communist newspaper, nor its agenda.

PILGRIM: It’s not considered fully a journalistic vehicle.

DOBBS: It’s certainly considered fully a political vehicle.

PILGRIM: Right.

DOBBS: Kitty, thank you very much. Kitty Pilgrim.

Amazing. Just amazing. Il Manifesta is a communist newspaper, but it is nonetheless a mainstream, legitimate media outlet in Italy, where communism isn’t considered fringe.

But I’ll bite: from now on, CNN should adopt the Lou Dobbs school of bias revelation whenever it quotes any source, not just Italian commie newspapers. We should therefore be able to look forward to such tidbits as these on future broadcasts:

DOBBS: And interestingly enough, the national media in this country has not put in context “The Wall Street Journal,” the neoconservative newspaper, nor its agenda.

DOBBS: And interestingly enough, the national media in this country has not put in context “The Washington Times,” the Moonie newspaper, nor its agenda.

DOBBS: And interestingly enough, the national media in this country has not put in context “Fox News,” the neofascist television network, nor its agenda.

DOBBS: And interestingly enough, the national media in this country has not put in context “The Bush Administration,” the unelected junta, nor its agenda.

Right, Lou?