One of the biggest topics among conservative bloggers the past several days is a video, broadcast last week by CNN, that shows insurgent snipers in Iraq shooting at U.S. troops. The right is nearly apoplectic about this, and this week, they're getting support from Republican members of Congress.
The video is, to be sure, rather painful. The footage does not literally show any Americans getting shot or killed, but it does shows a service member standing in a public area. The viewer hears a shot fired, and then the video fades to black before any graphic images are seen. It doesn't seem to matter.
"Does CNN want America to win this thing?" Hunter asked yesterday on the network. In past wars, he said, the media was more pro-American. "You can't be on both sides of the war." […]
In a letter released yesterday, Hunter and two other Republican House members from California asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to remove CNN from the military embedding program, in which journalists spend time with combat units in Iraq.
"CNN has now served as the publicist for an enemy propaganda film," wrote Hunter and Reps. Brian Bilbray and Darrell Issa.
Of course, if anyone is serving as the publicist for an enemy propaganda film, it's the Republican National Committee.
-- Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report
