It seems CNN and Anderson Cooper's AC360 are in the tank and falling further behind in the ratings wars. It further seems that this has presented reason for the "Cable News Network" to emulate Fox News in a desire to manufacture controversy and report it as news rather than simply report on events as they are presented. How else to explain the decision to run with their story headlined H1N1 Vaccines to be Offered to Guantanamo Bay Detainees.

To their credit, CNN does not invent facts in this instance to create a controversy out of whole cloth such as Fox Noose has done on issues ranging from Death Panels to Liz Cheney's credibility as a national security expert. Nevertheless, they have diligently whipped up the emotional "I hate Arabs and other terrorists" crowd by reporting this Dog-Bites-Man story as a newsworthy item and then use it as bait for the usual demagogues to construe it as a controversial attack on American sensibilities.

First the facts as reported in the article:

1.) "The Pentagon will offer the H1N1 vaccination to detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, officials there said Friday."
2,) "...the decision (is) based on U.S. government assessments that people held in detention facilities are at high risk for the pandemic"
3.) "Base officials had not received the vaccinations and did not know when they were expected to arrive"

End of story.

Pretty unremarkable stuff, no? One would expect that we provide detainees with standard medical care such as flu vaccinations in keeping with our commitment to the Geneva Conventions (if not out of simple belief in humanitarian principles). And, as the article points out, Guantanamo is waiting for its delivery of the vaccine just like virtually every other health care outlet in the country.

But then CNN takes the story a bit further and includes comment from an intellectually challenged demagogue (Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan), who reacts predictably with a dehumanizing swipe at the detainees and a tour through some kind of parallel universe that haunts his grasp on reality.

"As long as Americans must wait to receive the vaccine, the detainees in Guantanamo Bay should not be given preferential treatment to receive the H1N1 vaccination," Stupak said in a letter to Secretary of the Army John McHugh. "Until this shortage is addressed, I urge Pentagon officials to reconsider this decision to vaccinate terrorist detainees ahead of Americans who are waiting."

The real story here is that an elected Congressional Representative would be so quick to pander to the "I hate Arabs and other terrorists" crowd as to totally misread a simple news account about providing unexceptional medical care to prisoners in our keeping.

But you'll find none of that in the CNN article.

Indeed, on the Friday edition of AC360 John King interviewed Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) about the health care debate, and just couldn't resist baiting him with an opening question about the "controversial decision" to provide vaccinations to Gitmo prisoners. On cue, the mad dog teabagger Republican foamed at the mouth in outrage over this manufactured travesty wherein Gitmo prisoners are supposedly being given preferential treatment over the rest of us Americans who just hate what Obama is doing to this country.

King was satisfied with the response for its "newsworthiness," and so offered no correction to the abhorrent misrepresentation of the facts of this story. Having raised the issue as a legitimate controversy of his own making, I suppose it would have been difficult for King to ask in follow-up "Excuse me, Mr. Pence, but where have you seen it reported that the detainees were to be given the vaccine ahead of anyone else now waiting for it to be delivered?"

If they wish to present themselves as a legitimate news outlet, CNN has a responsibility to point out any facts that get in the way of a good story. Indeed, in this case it is incumbent upon a journalist to actually point out the way in which a non-controversial action undertaken by the government is being manipulated by demagogues to spread fear and resentment among the populace.

CNN has instead chosen to become a willing tool of the hate-mongering demagogues as a rather transparent means to boost their ratings. It is Lou Dobbs gone viral, and there is no vaccine that will protect us from the diseased "journalism" at CNN that now competes with Fox to appeal to our basest fears, prejudices, intolerance, and tribalism as a means by which they can capture and hold our attention.

My wish for Fox and now CNN is a pox on both their houses, because the pandemic they otherwise invite with their diseased "journalism" leads directly to fascism as the only way in which to protect us from "the other" they so willfully vilify. And THAT'S a developing news story they are incapable of reporting for reason that they've already surrendered journalistic integrity for the reward of higher ratings in an entertainment medium.

Hatred. Intolerance. Fear. Anger. Demagoguery. Tribalism.

CNN will be there to report it as it happens.

Pictures at Eleven.