NY Times Defends Zarqawi

Poor Zarqawi. The NY Times feels that he was given an unfair shake by the US miliary the other day regarding those video-clip out-takes.

In keeping with their legendary objectivity (which means that they support everything and everybody except the US Government, US Military, the Republican Party and anyone in the world who agrees or supports any of them) they have printed the following in today's edition:

The weapon in question is complicated to master, and American soldiers and marines undergo many days of training to achieve the most basic competence with it. Moreover, the weapon in Mr. Zarqawi's hands was an older variant, which makes its malfunctioning unsurprising. The veterans said Mr. Zarqawi, who had spent his years as a terrorist surrounded by simpler weapons of Soviet design, could hardly have been expected to know how to handle it.

They Times also added that "Mr. Zarqawi looked clean and plump."

When I read this excerpt at Powerline my first reaction was that it must have been a satire taken from The Onion. Sadly, it wasn't.

Imagine what the current NY Times editorial staff might have said about Tojo and Hitler during WW II? It makes me shudder.