Today's Seattle Times online edition has a lengthy article on the sentencing of terrorist Ahmed Ressam in a Seattle federal court for attempting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the millennium eve.
At the very end of the article, reporters Hal Bernton and Sara Jane Green stretch and drop this "Oh, by the way" on readers:
Why do Berenton and Green stretch for the unsourced marshal story? And why give the last word to Ressam? Why not a last comment from a citizen who's glad Ressam is now behind bars.Recently, Ressam was asked by a U.S. marshal about the London bombing.
"It's terrible — it shouldn't have happened," Ressam said. "But what about the U.S. bombing in Iraq, and innocent civilians being killed?"
Most importantly, why give Ressam an opportunity to assert the moral equivalence claim so often made by terrorists and their sympathizers on the left?
Here are three possible explanations:
1) Bernton and Green were doing the kind of reporting they know will get them noticed by recruiters at the big MSM news organizations where moral equivalence is the accepted point of view.
2) Bernton and Green wanted an ending that would be well received by readers in politically liberal Seattle.
3) Bernton and Green really believe what they did was just good, unbiased reporting. The questions are invalid.
Explanation three, if true, would trouble me the most. How about you? Please share your thoughts.
I'm sending this post to Berenton and Green. I'll post any response they make, keeping the last word for myself.
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