Those bloated bodies

I was wondering when we were going to get to see the more gruesome handiwork of Katrina and George Bush! CNN has won the right to televise soldiers recovering bodies:

In an e-mail to CNN staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to "prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover" the hurricane victim recovery process.

"As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina's landfall along the Gulf," Walton wrote, "CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns."

But only when they want to. We've seen in the past two weeks how "balanced" and "vigorous" CNN's coverage has been as it assigned blame for the misery in New Orleans totally to FEMA and the President.

I still haven't seen any facts about the death toll anywhere. Maybe the estimates of 10,000 or more make for a a better story. If they turn out to be accurate, we'll see no end to body counts. Ed Driscoll has a round up of comments on the insane rage that has gripped the news media.

I suspect that the fears of seeing gruesome video of rotting bodies coming to pieces in the hands of the recovery crews won't be realized. We'll see body bags aplenty. But the first time we see a distraught relative upset by learning about the death of a family member from CNN, the need for pictures of bodies will suddenly seem less urgent.