Michael Berg's Comments Inspire Fury on the Right

Michael Berg's comments yesterday about the death of al-Zarqawi, the man who held the knife to Nick Berg's throat and cut his head off, have clearly made many right-wing bloggers and members of the MSM very uncomfortable.

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien stepped out of her objective journalist role to argue with Berg about his assertion that he felt only sadness at the death of al-Zarqawi.

O'BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O'BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O'BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who've said that they don't think he's a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell ...

Ace of Spades questions Berg's humanity:

The moral vanity of these people is disgusting. Attempting to remake themselves into Holy Angels, they instead make themselves into monsters. Does this asshole really think it's an enlightened human response to feel as bad for the death of your son's butcher as for your son's?

He thinks that attitude makes him better than other people?

I think it makes him less than human, personally.

Interesting. Ace did not think Ann Coulter's attitude toward five women who lost their husbands on 9/11 made her "less than human." Telling the 9/11 widows that "I've never seen anyone enjoying their husbands' death so much" made Ann "nasty" -- but it did not make her less than human. Forgiving your son's murderer and saying you feel only sadness that your son's murderer was killed does make one "less than human," however. I guess, then, that the central figure in the Christian religion was "less than human."

And then there is Scott Whitlock at NewsBusters. He says that Michael Berg should not have been allowed on the air at all:

It's easy for the cable anchors to criticize the extreme statements of Michael Berg. But the important question is, why, on this day, did they feature him at all?

Jude Nagurney Camwell over at American Street says, DUHHHH, because Zarqawi killed his son and, again, notes the contrast in the right's response when Ann Coulter was featured on a major news show:

Think of what happened just yesterday when we saw Brian Williams on the Nightly News giving plenty of prime time coverage to the controversy occurring on their own network when Matt Lauer hosted an interview with the offensive Ann Coulter, who took some of the ugliest pot-shots against 9/11 widows that I'd ever seen or heard. Shouldn't we ask why she was featured at all on a professional network -- and why her filthy statements echoed throughout the primetime cycle?