CNN coverage of Saddam’s hanging
Saddam is dead. Finally. Let’s all think about something else. As Tony Benn (81 year-old British politician) said an hour ago on CNN, “with six hundred thousand Iraqis killed since the US invasion, one more won’t make much difference.”
CNN has lived down to its role in this debacle as expected. They’ve been breathlessly covering the story for a few hours, including things like some blond reporter in the Green Zone standing in front of a couple of guys with a campfire. That’s how we can see she’s really out in the wild, you see. And these guys have black hair and mustaches, so that’s how we know they’re Iraqis. Every half hour or so, this chick tells us about “the mood on the street” or “the feeling here,” although her two stooges have never said a word.
We also got to see this chick talking to some medical expert about the physical details of what will happen when Saddam is hung. They even put a noose around the dummy’s neck, and after a couple minutes on spinal-cord injuries and other details, they panned down to the exposed red heart of the dummy and ended with the point that Saddam’s heart will stop beating within three minutes of being hung. Nice touch.
Oh, just while I was typing this, they broke in to say that Al Jazeera has report that Saddam is dead.
And — I am not making this up — they just showed some guys in Dearborn, Michigan (later identified as “Iraqi Christians”) waving Iraqi flags and celebrating. Still no word from any actual Iraqis in Iraq, though, other than the second-hand messages from those buddies of the blond CNN chick.
Anderson Cooper just broke in to say that Saddam died half an hour ago, at 7:05PM PST, according to Al Arabia. And while he’s talking, they keep showing that dental exam of Saddam that was done back when he was captured.
They just went back to Dearborn, where a CNN reporter is explaining that “many people here” (those aforementioned Iraqi Christians living in the US) “feel this justifies the Iraq war.” He also just explained that these people have been “thanking God for what has happened.”
In America, we call this journalism.
A final snippet: the blond chick just came back to say that she heard some celebratory gunfire in the distance, and Anderson asked her how to “tell the difference between celebratory gunfire and, uh, not celebratory gunfire.” She explained that if people near you aren’t running away, then it’s safe to assume it’s celebratory.
He quickly tried to kiss her ass by saying that when he was in Iraq with her (Arwen something) he always looked to her judgment on these questions, but the you-jerk look on her face and the smoldering eyes were priceless. Then the next time they showed the other Green Zone correspondent, he had a bulletproof vest on, and also sucked up to Arwen for warning him about the shooting.
It may not be journalism, but it’s certainly entertainment!
This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 8:07 pm. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on December 29, 2006 at 8:14 pm Megan wrote:
My favorite was at the end of Larry King when he said “It’s just around the corner and it’s all yours, Anderson.” It must have been hard for poor Larry to hand off that juicy plum.
And just think how Wolf Blitzer must feel!
on December 29, 2006 at 8:18 pm Doug wrote:
Yeah, poor Wolf was left out on this one, although Peter Arnett got to re-live some Gulf War glory this evening. That guy’s hair makes me glad I shave my head, I must say.
on December 29, 2006 at 10:00 pm Megan wrote:
Juan Cole has posted an article about the execution on Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/12/30/saddam/
Some interesting specifics I hadn’t heard before about the Sunni-Shia conflict and how it relates to the trial and the timing of the execution.
on December 29, 2006 at 10:45 pm Doug wrote:
Yeah, I’ve always wondered why he wasn’t tried for gassing the Kurds or Iranians, but instead for this much smaller incident from long ago.
And the timing of the execution sure gives Sunni death squads a reason to get busy on the Shia holiday Sunday. Guess we’ll just have to “surge” in a bunch more troops after that unpredictable reaction and its unpredictable consequences. Who knew?
on December 30, 2006 at 8:19 am Tom wrote:
Yep, this morning they’re wandering the streets of Dearborn, finding more Iraqis who will produce good TV. I notice they haven’t talked to anyone who has a pessimistic view of the situation in Iraq — I can’t believe that every Iraqi American believes that this will immediately solve Iraq’s problems, but that seems to be what the people CNN found are saying.
I’m reminded of whenever it snows around here and they send every reporter they have out to stand on an overpass somewhere and report for WinterWatch ‘06. If you have to try that hard to produce it, it’s NOT news.
on December 30, 2006 at 8:42 am Doug wrote:
Remember last night CNN was saying that “Saddam was a broken man” over and over? Now this morning it comes out that he refused to wear a hood and was “defiant to the end,” even mocking Muqtada al-Sadr in his final words. Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, an eyewitness, says Saddam appeared “totally oblivious to what was going on around him. I was very surprised. He was not afraid of death.”
By the way, the source of the “broken man” comment last night was Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a lifelong friend of al-Sadr’s pro-American uncle, Grand Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr. Probably a coincidence that his version differs from that of everyone else who was there, and that he was the one person the American media turned to for initial reactions. Well, him and some frat boys in Dearborn.
on December 30, 2006 at 10:59 am AUNT MARSHA wrote:
I COULDN’T BELIEVE I ACTUALLY WATCHED IT THIS MORNING ON AOL…WHAT THEY SHOWED. I FELT NO HAPPINESS. NO GLEE. NOT AN IOTA OF SATISFACTION FOR THE MAN’S BEING HUNG FOR THE CRIMINAL DEEDS HE, INDEED, COMMITTED.
I SOMEHOW…FOUND MYSELF WATCHING HIM AND SEEING NOT A BROKEN MAN—BY ANY MEANS–BUT, A TRULY HUMAN MAN…WITH SOME DIGNITY…AND PERHAPS EVEN GRACE.
NOT TRYING TO TIE IN ANY OF HIS ATROCITIES TO THESE FEELINGS….JUST NOT GETTING OFF ON HIS HAVING BEEN PUT TO DEATH.
(if, in fact, he was.I always think he’ll go to the JFK farm and sit drinkin sweet tea with Elvis and crew, ya know?)
on December 30, 2006 at 12:14 pm Doug wrote:
And James Brown, too.
Hey, do you think the folks in South Africa will watch Iraq over the next couple of years and regret forgiving all those apartheid leaders? “Man, if Nelson Mandela had just been willing to hang a few of those white supremist assholes, we could be on the fast track to healing and democracy and freedom like Iraq is!”
on January 1, 2007 at 8:05 am AUNT MARSHA wrote:
No, Hon. I do not think the South Afs will be watching much of any of this.
I thought Mandela was dead, too. (also)The whites are still not laughing about having let him loose, period.
Speaking ill of the dead, I just finished “Jokes My Father Never Taught Me”, by Rain Pryor. Very poorly written book, unfortunately, even though she didn’t apparently write much of it herself.
I was aghast, however, to learn of just how my dear Richard entered the end. Horrible!If the account is true (and I had wondered mightily just why we never heard ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT THE FUNERAL, HIS LIFE, ETC. after the announcement of the death itself), he died afraid and all but captive in the hands of the evil Jennifer.Funeral only barely attended by anyone.
I am hoping he is now with friends like James and laughing.I sure hope I go somewhere where there is laughter when I die.The Funny Farm of Eternity for dead stand ups? Would I have to actually BE a stand up to go there?Well, I got a bartending licence—why stop now? I could become anything. What was the guy’s name who married you and Meg? She just recently told me that he got the certification FOR your wedding. I could do the next one! Molly and Q???????? I think I can even get extra Memolink points for applying for the paper.