There is no way any expert on national television in late May 2008 who says Osama in place of Obama has simply made an honest mistake.
If any pundit, interviewee or newspaper mogul does mix up their B's and S's, that person no longer belongs in the position of expert or interviewee.
I understand that we have no control over the newspaper moguls. They can gut their staffs, fill their papers with colonics ads in place of editorial and carry on insinuation campaigns against presidential candidates.
But we need to call out Liz Trotta on her heartfelt and characteristic misanthropy. Because it isn't funny.
I offer this because people are good here, and they are inclined to cut Ms. Trotta some slack in judging whether she really meant to say, "both, if we could," and whether her laugh really was vicious. And we'll never know, really, what Trotta meant, because the moment flickers by so fast, and we are mere mortals, not mind-readers. But we do know that Trotta, before she said "if we could," said "Osama" when she should have said "Obama." And this wasn't a mistake. It was deliberate.
As evidence, exhibit A: A YouTube video of a CNN report that aired a more than two years ago, before Barack Obama had even decided to run:
And, exhibit B, just to refresh our memories, in January 2007, CNN did it in printed word on the screen:
During the Jan. 1 broadcast of Wolf Blitzer's nightly news program, a pre-commercial preview of the show's next segment included a story on the hunt for Al Qaeda's leadership. Over a photo of Osama Bin Laden and his second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Blitzer stated, according to the transcript, "Plus, a new year, but the same mission. Will 2007 bring any new changes in the hunt for Osama bin Laden?"
But instead of asking "Where's Osama?" the graphic over the two Islamists read "Where's Obama?" referencing the surname of popular Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama.
Huge controversy ensued. Calls to station. Apology from CNN. Obama campaign made statement. CNN learned to be careful.
And exhibit C: the delightful Mitt Romney, he who always says the darndest things (doncha kind miss him rapping?), confused the two when talking of jihad:
The former Massachusetts governor was criticizing Democrats on foreign policy when he said, according to the Associated Press, "Actually, just look at what Osam - Barack Obama - said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. . . . It's almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland."
As Eugene Volokh pointed out, Microsoft Word still mistakenly spell-corrects "Obama" to "Osama," simply because the former just hasn't been around as long as the latter.
But Liz Trotta and Dean Singleton are not computer software, sadly.
I have enormous respect for Liz Trotta. As the first woman to cover a war on television, she fought back against sexism and humiliation I have been lucky never to know. She did battle with network executives, politicians and her own colleagues to have access to stories beyond weddings and fashion.
And she is seething with rage. As Jon Katz wrote in his 1991 Columbia Journalism Review coverage of Trotta's autobiography, "Fighting for Air":
As a conservative, Trotta . . . is disdainful of journalistic and civilian opponents of the Vietnam War, dismissing them as woolly-headed poseurs, suggesting that the military -- many of whom she befriended and admired -- could have won the war if not for interfering politicians, liberal journalists, and raunchy hippies.
Liz Trotta was not speaking about Hillary Clinton's mind when she slipped up today. She was venting her own mind, and reflecting a widespread hostility toward liberals in general, and one in particular. Her tossed-off remarks is probably not worthy of criminal prosecution. But it is worthy of our passionate and unmitigated rebuke.