NBC’s David Gregory on Friday night resurrected two of the favorite quotes of Bush-bashers as he contrasted past boasts with how the current “cautious view about the way forward in Iraq underscores the degree to which events on the ground have humbled the Bush team.” After a clip of Bush on Friday conceding the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is “not going to end the war. It's certainly not going to end the violence. But it's going to help a lot," Gregory declared: "It's a far cry from July, 2003" -- when Bush uttered his “bring ‘em on" taunt. Gregory then offered a second example, Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2005 prediction that "we're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." (Transcript follows)

This weekend, we're doing two pictures for the captionfest. Here's the original of the first: "TV cameramen film a photograph displayed at a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq purporting to show the body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida-linked militant."

Second: "A Pakistani Muslim reads a newspaper splashed with headlines of the killing of al Qaeda militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Peshawar June 9, 2006."

As I noted yesterday, while most Americans were celebrating the military success that killed the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, there were still some in the media trying to spin the development in a negative light. That trend continued on the CBS "Evening News" with Bob Schieffer last evening. In one segment, Schieffer interviewed two critics of the war in Iraq, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and CBS News Analyst Michael Scheuer. Scheuer had also appeared earlier in the day on "The Early Show."

Schieffer focused on Friedman first, inquiring what Friedman thought about the development:

"How important is this?"

Meredith Vieira departed ABC's The View (registration required) today and she certainly went out with, uh, a bang. At 11:36AM EDT, co-host Joy Behar toasted Vieira, who will join the Today show in September. She remarked, "I’m so upset....And I just don’t know how to express it, you know? I thought to myself, what would Rosie O’Donnell do?"

Then Behar took Vieira in her arms and the two engaged in a long kiss. In case you missed it, ABC replayed it in slow-motion a few seconds later as they went to commercial.

A silly moment on an unserious show? Perhaps. But opponents of gay rights probably shouldn’t expect the new host of the Today show to give their arguments much credence.

The media’s defeatist analysis of the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi has now continued into a second day. Matt Lauer opened the June 9 Today show with this cheery greeting:

"Good morning. What now? The day after the world learned of the death of Abu Musab Zarqawi. The question remains, who will take his place and will it spark revenge attacks?"

Almost ten minutes later, at 7:09AM EDT, Lauer prefaced an interview with Karen Hughes, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, by asking the following question:

"So how will the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi impact the battered image of the United States around the world?"

In addition to this now familiar negativity, the Today show also came up with a new angle: How does the death of a brutal thug make his supporters feel?

Reuters reports that the country music trio Dixie Chicks is having trouble filling seats at concerts as it continues to take heat for criticism of President Bush.

While early ticket purchases for their first major tour in three years are generally robust in Northeastern cities, initial sales have fallen short of expectations in numerous markets, especially in the Midwest and South, forcing some dates to be scrubbed.

Who would have thought that the biggest country music fans would be in Boston and New York?

By contrast, the group's latest album, "Taking the Long Way," opened atop the U.S. pop charts last week, selling 526,000 copies during its first seven days and remaining No. 1 in its second week to notch one of the year's strongest debuts.

LA Times ran a jaw dropping lead this morning:

Bin Laden Far More Difficult to Find than Zarqawi, Officials say

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Although the U.S. military located and killed the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, finding Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden remains a tougher task, officials and analysts said Thursday....

Thanks LAT, don't know what I'd do without you.

Hat Tip to milblogger Greyhawk for the sharp eye.

There has been some buzz in the email this morning about a question Pam Hess of UPI asked General William Caldwell in a briefing this morning. In her question, Hess referred to those who died in the air strike that killed the most wanted man in Iraq, including Abu Musab al Zarqawi himself, as victims. Her full question was:

"General, this is Pam Hess of UPI. What's going to happen to Zarqawi's body after the autopsy? Does it get returned to Jordan to his family? And do you have anything on the identity of the others killed in the strike? And was it 6 victims including Zarqawi or was it 7?"

A legitimate question, however, her word choice is unfortunate. Let us remember the true victims are the ones who were savagely murdered by Zarqawi and his network of thugs. Zarqawi and his associates killed along with him, are not victims here, rather, they are the recipients of justice.

If the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were "good" news, it's hard to imagine how the media could report much worse for "bad" news in Iraq.

Pretend Pundit has a good roundup of media headlines.

One day after the killing of Al-Zarqawi, it's business-as-usual for the Drive-by Media. The Washington Post even ran a poll reminding us that we all think Iraq sucks.

If I'm a Democratic strategist, I couldn't be happier. Here are this morning's top headlines:

CNN: Al-Zarqawi is dead, violence continues
CNN: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was alive when U.S. troops first reached him after the airstrike on his safe house, a U.S. general said, according to news reports. Of course, there's got to be controversy. What did Rumsfeld know and when did he know it?

The NY Times’ Carl Hulse says goodbye and good riddance to Rep. Tom DeLay, the former Republican House majority leader resigning his seat in Congress today, with “Defiant to the End, Delay Pats Himself on the Back and Bids the House a Torrid Goodbye.”

“Representative Tom DeLay personifies the word ‘unapologetic.’

It's not necessary for reporters to agree that the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a major victory. But they should let their readers know such people, outside the Bush Administration, exist.

In After Zarqawi, No Clear Path In Weary Iraq by the Washington Post's Ellen Knickmeyer, every independent expert downplays the significance of Zarqawi's death. Even a mysteriously identified "longtime participant in the U.S. military hunt for Zarqawi" sees it as upside for the bad guys. Yet at least one of Knickmeyer's named sources is more upbeat in a different outlet, and she omits the passionate political convictions of another.

Washington Post culture critic Philip Kennicott has filed a series of essays for the Style section about images of the war in Iraq, like the images out of Abu Ghraib. He lowered the boom today on the insensitive louts who framed a picture of dead Zarqawi. The headline: "A Chilling Portrait, Unsuitably Framed." Kennicott found the framed picture "bizarre." He lamented that the reaction was cheers from the war supporters, and intimidation of the anti-war crowd, that they had to cheer, too. Kennicott couldn't really bring himself to do much of that. He predicted, unlike the Abu Ghraib images, that this image would not be historical:

So will this image, given a strange dignity by its prominent frame, be a defining image of the war? Not likely. Its primary function is forensic. It proves, in an age of skepticism (heightened by a three-year history of official claims about the war turning out to be false), that Zarqawi is indeed dead. But beyond that, the image has little power. Indeed, as with so many images in this war, it is loaded with the potential to backfire.

If Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and all of al Qaeda’s leaders in Iraq and throughout the world laid down their arms and surrendered to American forces, would the media report it as good news?

Judging from the initial press reaction to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq by the American military on Wednesday, the answer appears to be no.

In fact, this tepid response to the death of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq – a man who has at times in the past couple of years been depicted as more vital to this terrorist network than the currently in-hiding bin Laden – suggests quite disturbingly that America’s media are fighting a different war than America’s soldiers.

According to NewsBusters, CNN’s senior editor for Arab affairs Octavia Nasr said the following about Zarqawi’s death on “American Morning” Thursday:

"Some people say it will enrage the insurgency, others say it will hurt it pretty bad. But if you think about the different groups in Iraq, you have to think that Zarqawi's death is not going to be a big deal for them."

However, CNN didn’t always feel that Zarqawi’s death or capture would be so inconsequential. Just days after Saddam Hussein was found in his spider hole, Paula Zahn brought CNN national correspondent Mike Boettcher on to discuss a new threat in Iraq. Zahn began the December 15, 2003 segment:

It really has been fascinating to watch the left-wing hysteria this week over Ann Coulter’s new book “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Of course, from a publicity standpoint, Coulter must be thrilled about all the free attention these folks have given her.

Yet, maybe the most telling example of liberal disgust with Coulter came from Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Illinois) who actually took some time on the House floor to discuss his outrage over this book. In his minute-plus diatribe, he referred to Coulter as a “hatemonger.” Emanuel even likened Coulter to terrorists stating that, “The hate she spews is the same kind of hatred we're battling in the war on terror.”

Emanuel concluded by chastising Republicans for not speaking against the conservative author asking, “Does Ann Coulter speak for you?"

What follows is a transcript of this speech, and a video link, both courtesy of Crooks and Liars.

Well, yes, actually, although you wouldn't know it from this morning's addition to the "Yes, but" Chorus from the Rocky.

The al-Qaida leader's demise has given the Iraqi people "a lot of hope and optimism," said Joe Rice, a former Glendale mayor and Army reservist who recently completed his second tour in Iraq.

Joe Rice is also running as a Democrat to succeed Joe Stengel in the Colorado House's 38th District.  Should our friend Matt Dunn win the Republican nomination, this is the guy he'll be going up against.

On March 18, the Rocky ran both an op-ed by Rice, and an editorial referencing that op-ed, and neither mentioned Rice's candidacy for the House 38th. 

I'm on a quick strike down to NYC today to attend a talk radio convention.

And speaking of quick strikes, Matt Lauer launched one at Karen Hughes on this morning's 'Today.'  Hughes, who serves as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, was on to discuss US relations in the Arab world in the, ahem, wake of the killing of Zarqawi.

At the end of the interview, Lauer hit Hughes with this 21/2-month old quote from Donald Rumsfeld:

"If I were grading, I would say we probably deserve a D or a D-plus as a country as to how well we’re doing in the battle of ideas that’s taking place in the world today. And I’m not going to suggest that it’s easy, but we have not found the formula as a country."

Rick Klein at the Boston Globe reported Thursday that Republicans in the House are proposing a cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) again, which completely failed last spring:

On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending...

A similar move last year by Republican leaders was turned back in a fierce lobbying campaign launched by Public Broadcasting Service stations and Democratic members of Congress, in a debate that was colored by some Republicans' frustration with what they see as a liberal slant in public programming.

Peter Wehner, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives, highlights what most of us keep forgetting because the MSM refuses to ever cover it:

The death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi also underscores the difficulty al Qaeda terrorists have been encountering in Iraq. Most of the media narrative about Iraq has been on the difficulties the United States faces. Those difficulties are real -- but they are far from the full story. What goes almost unnoticed is the enormous series of body blows our enemies have sustained. We have by now intercepted several key communications among terrorists in Iraq over the years -- and we keep learning about their despair at the progress of democracy and their unhappiness with the course of events.

The death of Mr. Zarqawi will add immeasurably to their troubles.

Media spin did of course take it much further:

Many in the Arab world doubted whether the Jordanian-born Zarqawi even existed. (Some reports indicate that Jordanian intelligence provided information on the location where he was killed.)

Living up to the Arab conviction in "conspiracy theories", many argued that Zarqawi was created by the Americans to justify their problems in Iraq. Whenever something went wrong, they would blame it on Zarqawi.

Some especially jaded champagne communists of the Left are calling the killing a stunt and make every effort to discredit the struggle for Iraq's liberation. Their doomsday dogma for Iraq remains unchanged despite the clear assessment of Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. After all, who is he to know...

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