Odds and Ends about "Passionate" Reporting

A few gleanings from the morning TV news reports:

Howie Kurtz did throw a couple of softballs to Anderson Cooper about "passionate" reporting, which is all the ["literally"] rage now that everything is politicized to the detriment of Republican/conservative positions. However, Ted Koppel came on a pre-recorded clip calling for "dispassionate" reporting, a la Aaron Brown. Kind of puts Koppel in a non-employment situation with Jon Klein of CNN, who is lauding Cooper for his "missionary" approach to newscasting. As in the "missionary position?"

Kurtz also played moderator among Howard Sesco, Gloria Borger and CNN new-hire John Roberts, concerning the Dubai Ports role. When Borger and Sesco suggested that the Cheney story was hyped beyond belief, Roberts, who played the Dan Rather far-left role that evidently Jon Klein hired him for, actually thought that a week and change of coverage [which incidentally kept the press from uncovering the Dubai Port acquisition] was apparently not enough, or at least not too much! Clearly, CBS would not have been well-served had this Canadian become anchor.

Also interesting was the play-up of Republican opposition to the deal, with no mention of Democratic support for the deal [LAT, WaPo editorials].

George Stephanopoulos had a good group on, including Fareed Zakaria, who always brings a broader perspective. Zakaria was in India when the Dubai blow-up occurred and correctly pointed out that everyone immediately thought the US Congressional reaction was "racism against brown people." FZ pointed out that Democrats who abhor racial profiling stateside have a horror of brown people buying US properties. Dionne professed mock-shock at the Dems hypocrisy. The fact is that the Bush GWOT has probably inspired deep xenophobia about Arabs and Muslims, and the situation isn't getting better when the Krauthammers, Podhoretzes and Ledeens call for cutting off the deal. Plus the increasingly provincial NYT. The Rasmusson Poll over at RCP indicates broad-based national security concerns and the Dems aren't going to stand on principle, racial profiling or not.

Jaafari in Iraq got slammed by Zakaria as a "Gucci guerrilla," although those words were not used. Zalmay Khalilizad got stereotyped as a Sunni after implying that Shi'ite militias and Shi'ite goon squads in the Interior Ministry were not part of the US militarization plan. Again and again, US inability to leverage much out of 130,000 troops was commented upon, and US de-facto support of the Shi'ites, unintentional though it has been, has our Ambassador there cornered when he tries to get Jaafari, a very slippery negotiator according to all accounts, to give the Sunnis enough ministries in the new government to stave off a general insurgency from the remaining Sunni "moderates." Scoffed at was what Jaafari deserved to be when he protested US "interference" in the negotiations by the US Ambassador, as if he would be PM designate had the US stayed away from Iraq. George Will had a good observation about the mayor of LA asking the Crips and the Bloods to police the streets!

Fareed Zakaria had Christopher Hitchens as his guest, and CH got things off after FZ provocatively asked whether Martin Luther King could be pilloried the way Muhammed has in cartoons. CH replied that MLK was the world champion at indoor sports in the adultery department! But it would be fear that ruled the day.

Then in the middle of the WXEL FZ/CH interview, the station went dead! Hmmm!