zarqawi. primetime.

* buzzflash:

" CNN had Michael Berg (whose son was beheaded by Zarqawi in Iraq) on several times today, but in one segment, when he began calling for the impeachment of George Bush, he was very abruptly cut off, before he finished his sentence."

Also, Mick Berg was wearing a "Stop The War" teeshirt - which has previously meant that he was censored. Today, they are showing just the "Stop" part of the teeshirt. (i also thought that i heard michael berg say that he thought the nickberg video was fake - but i can't find any reference to that).

* jeralyn:

• His face looks very intact for someone who was killed by two 500 pound bombs.
• The U.S. says they recovered a lot of documentary evidence that is leading them to others. So that wasn't destroyed either.
• Because this Administration has so little credibility and a history of distracting us with terror news when it is hurting politically, like now, I can't help but wonder if al-Zarqawi wasn't killed some time ago and they just decided to announce it today and tell us he was killed in yesterday's raid. Everyone hates al-Zarqawi, even the Iraqis, particularly because of the wedding bombings.

jeralyn wears tinfoil

* larisa:

"Raw uncovers the 'real heroes' of Musab al-Zarqawi's fall: The Wednesday death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been brought about by a mixture of his own hubris, his ebbing credibility in the al-Qaeda network and the valiant efforts of a special operations unit knows as Task Force 145 "

* nyt has the WH backstory:

""What you really need to do," Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois told the president, "is go get Zarqawi," according to an account by the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, who was at the meeting.

"I said 'Yeah, we'll just order that up right now,' " Mr. Snow recalled in an interview this morning.

Minutes after that exchange, at 3:45 p.m., the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, left the room in response to note passed to him asking that he call the American ambassador to Iraq in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad.

"We think we have Zarqawi," Mr. Khalilzad told him.
[]
White House officials said today that they decided to hold off from the obvious temptation to try to break into prime time television right away with the rare good news. Rather, they decided it would be best to keep the secret for as long as possible and allow it to be announced in Baghdad, along with the news that the government there had finally filled three key posts, the ministers of defense, interior and national security."

hysterical.

question: will zarqawi's death play on cable longer than the reagan and pope deaths?

* froomkin:

"In a case of interesting timing, Mary Anne Weaver , writing in the latest issue of Atlantic (subscription required), debunks the mythology of Zarqawi, who she insists "is not the terrorist mastermind that he is often claimed to be."

She also writes: "During my time in Jordan, I asked a number of officials what they considered to be the most curious aspect of the relationship between the U.S. and al-Zarqawi, other than the fact that the Bush administration had inflated him.

"One of them said, 'The six times you could have killed Zarqawi, and you didn't.'"

* i wonder why they didnt capture him rather than blow him to bits kill him and keep his head intact - so they could torture him and learn useful stuff - perhaps a ticking nuclear timebomb is about to explode in NYC and Zarqawi might have been able to save everyone. Or perhaps they could have saved the woman and child.