Why Did The AP Publish A Dying Soldier's Photo?

Because they are assholes.

“I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”

Levi Johnston: Authoritative Source For the Associated Press

Back in the 1990's Gary Aldrich had been an FBI agent assigned to the Clinton White House. What he saw there appalled him and he wrote a book about it. He was called a liar by the mainstream media, simply based upon the Clintons' word.

Today, a tedious little high school dropout named Levi Johnston, whose sole claim to fame is that he impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter, is an authoritative source on what Sarah Palin is thinking.

In a way, this is a step up. We're still waiting for the Associated Press to produce Captain Jamil Hussein.

Associated Press: We Won!

I wonder if it took so long for the AP to report this because they were waiting for Jamil Hussein to break the news to them.

The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.

Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace — a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

They certainly had no difficulty rushing false stories about finding 20 beheaded bodies or Sunnis being burned alive within view of approving Iraqi soldiers.

A Grim Milestone

I'm estimating that this is just about the 10,000th hopelessly biased anti-victory "news" story.

The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq rose to 4,000 after four soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, a grim milestone that is likely to fuel calls for the withdrawal of American forces as the war enters its sixth year.

In the old days, Rush Limbaugh used to joke that he didn't just give you the news, but as a bonus, told you what to think about it. The AP isn't joking.