Covering the Coverage

The death late yesterday of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi has produced myriad number of responses in the blogosphere and the media both. Many are surprising, many are expected and some are just...unbelievable.

We'll start there, with the moral idiocy of Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg. You remember him, the first of too many Western contractors and civilian personnel beheaded by Zarqawi:

"I think al-Zarqawi's death is a double tragedy," Michael Berg told The Associated Press after learning a U.S. airstrike had killed the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "His death will incite a new wave of revenge. George Bush and al-Zarqawi are two men who believe in revenge."

Berg said the blame for most deaths in Iraq should be placed on President Bush, who he said is "more of a terrorist than Zarqawi."

"Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it," Berg added, pausing to collect himself. " George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist.

Does the man not recall the screams of his son as Zarqawi slowly, patiently hacked through his neck with a dull blade for seven minutes?! I hate to say such things about somebody who has experienced something so horrible as the death of a child but if this man can't distinguish between a butcher like Zarqawi and a legitimate act of war (and an act that is more than deserved), then I fear his understanding of right and wrong is seriously impaired.

From there to big media's unwillingness or inability (take your pick) to acknowledge good news for the American effort:

It isn't sad. It is predictable.

MSM has been trained by Democratic Party cues to view every development in the war through the lens of the political war on the Bush Adminsitration.

News is never "good," but "long overdue." Excellent political developments are mere flip-turns en route to another length of anti-Bush diatribe.

John Kerry believes the very thing that the deranged half of his Democratic base believes about the President:

John Kerry - Some Democrats renewed pressure on Bush to bring U.S. troops home by the end of the year. "Our troops have done their job in Iraq," said Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

Apparently getting Zarqawi was the magic bullet!

Meanwhile, the reaction of two Democratic politicians are indistinguishable from members of their loony electoral base:

Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.

"This is just to cover Bush's [rear] so he doesn't have to answer" for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. "Iraq is still a mess -- get out."

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of "a growing anti-American insurgency" and that it's time to get out. "We're there for all the wrong reasons," Mr. Kucinich said.

The most deranged of the deranged were actively consulting with each other today, looking for a spin that could work.

Finally, Pajamas Media is the closest thing to a one-stop shop on this. Read it all.