Both ABC and NBC led the nightly news last night with the Internet release of photos of the flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base. “LEADING the news?!” said my colleague Rich Noyes. They both mentioned the casket picture in the Seattle Times, and how the contractor who snapped it was fired.

Journalists love to highlight how the policy seems designed to prevent political damage. But they never highlight how easily they believe in using them to infliect political damage. Casket pictures don’t advance the news story — the Department of Defense doesn’t claim that no one is dying in Iraq. It doesn’t leave the dead anonymous. Casket pictures are one way the media manipulate with images. The networks last night did not note how TV elites used to highlight these images. I still remember CNN covering a Bush Uno press conference with a two-shot of caskets at Dover AFB. Don’t tell me they weren’t making a little live political commercial.