I should've known that something interesting was coming on CNN when I saw that the violent-nihilistic movie, "V for Vendetta" was advertising itself earlier today on "CNN Sunday Night." You might remember that film; audiences were supposed to cheer terrorists as they blow up Big Ben in London. Happily, audiences shunned the film--Hollywood seems to have overestmated the public appetite for terror-philic films.
And that was just the commercial.
Host Carol Lin didn't let me down, either--even as she ran down the USA. Following a tough story on alleged US atrocities in Iraq, Lin intro'd a second feature, in which she annouced that some 14,000 Iraqis had been killed in sectarian fighting, according to the UN. Pushing our buttons with her voice and eyebrows, she asked/demanded, "Can you imagine" if that were true here in the US? That's right, she seemed to be saying--none of us are safe from the US military.
Next up, Lin interviewed Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite Muslims at the Council on Foreign Relations. OK, Nasr is a good "get," having been flatteringly profiled in The Wall Street Journal on Friday. But while Nasr was willing to talk about "sectarian conflicts" in Iraq, Lin wanted more. She asked him three times: Isn't this really ethnic cleansing? At one point she even volunteered her own semi-answer: "If the world were to call it ethnic cleansing, how would the world react?" Gee, Carol, when you put it that way...
Folks, it's fine if Lin, or anyone else, wants to express his or her opinion on the issues of the day, including Iraq. But just don't call it news. The reporter should report, and then we should decide. Instead, Lin was leading the witness.
Late note: To CNN military analyst David Grange, she brought up Israeli claims that Israel has degraded Hezbollah command and control--only to drag those claims down. "What evidence--if any?--is there to support that?" Got that, audiences? You could practically see the "sneer quotes" that Lin put around the word "evidence."
Then, after deigning to let Grange answer her leading questions, Lin volunteered her own opinion--she's an expert, right?--which was that Hezbollah, having been successful at firing off yet another bunch of missiles killing Israelis, should now be regarded as "rock stars." That's right, rock stars.
Lin has her opinion, but the US government, and almost all Americans--indeed, civilized people everywhere--have a different opinion.
But of course, Lin, the Hezbollah-groupie, is the one with the big megaphone. The rest of us are just bloggers. Even if we are listening, and taking notes. Maybe, one day, there will be enough of us Davids to bring down the media goliaths of trendy chic-y admiration for terrorists and murderers.
But in the meantime, this is CNN.
