IN PARTICULAR,

the vicious, blood-sucking scum CEO Thomas Curley and photographer Julie Jacobson.

“There’s the form we signed agreeing to how and what we would cover while embedded. It says we can photograph casualties from a respectable distance and in such a way that the person is not identifiable.”–AP Photographer Julie Jacobson

Via The Mudville Gazette, here is what she gave her word to:

“The rule regarding coverage of “wounded, injured, and ill personnel” states that the “governing concerns” are “patient welfare, patient privacy and next of kin/family considerations.”

“Casualties may be covered by embedded media as long as the service member’s identity and unit identification is protected from disclosure until OASD-PA [Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs] has officially released the name. Photography from a respectful distance or from angles at which a casualty cannot be identified is permissible…”

Via Hot Air:

The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published. The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.” …

Gates wrote to Thomas Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “Out of respect for his family’s wishes, I ask you in the strongest of terms to reconsider your decision. [...] I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organization would purposefully defy the family’s wishes knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish is beyond me. Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling. The issue here is not law, policy or constitutional right – but judgment and common decency.”

Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard gave his word to all of us, and he kept it, even at the cost of his life.

On the other hand, the slime at AP abandoned their word to the troops at the very first opportunity they saw to advance their politics, their careers and their bank accounts. It takes a special breed of assholes to try and make a point and a buck by running roughshod over the grave of a dead hero while the family is still burying him.

Abandoning your word, exploiting the vulnerable, discarding professionalism, putting your politics and careerism above all else–this is a perfectly distilled metaphor for the state of modern journalism.

You kept your word, Cpl. Bernard. Rest in Peace.

Update from Mike! I especially love the bit about conveying “the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.” Riiight. Because none of us had any idea that war is hell before. Sounds a little to me like those smokers who sue the tobacco companies — because hey, who could’ve possibly guessed smoking might be bad for you, what with the government not putting those warnings all over each and every pack sold, and all the TV, radio, and magazine ads, and all.

That line would more properly read: “…the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it — so that we’ll never, ever muster the national will to act in our own defense again.” They really do seem to believe that wars are fought not reluctantly, out of dire necessity, but for the amusement of our rulers, an evil tolerated just because people don’t understand the inhuman hideousness of it. So if they just keep showing us the grim reality, they might effectively end all war, for good. And who could possibly be against that?

All of which makes them not just despicable propagandists, but idiots as well.

Still waiting for them to show a few pics of what Muslim headchoppers routinely do to infidels in the course of waging their war for our subjugation, by the way, which would seem to be a necessary part of “conveying the grimness of war” in its actual entirety, the absence of which reveals just how completely full of shit they are. Remember it when they truncate the footage from the 9/11 attacks in the next few days, or refuse to show it altogether, as some media outlets have done the last few years.

But then, these same propagandists can’t even scrape up the stones to show us the forbidden Mohammed cartoons. Which makes them not just idiots, but cowardly idiots to boot.

Hats off to Gates, though, for at least taking a stab at appealing to the decency and humanity of people who have neither.