The CBC National offers no transcript of each evening's newscast. This might be admirable husbandry of taxpayers' dollars; but I rather think they don't want any of it preserved in black and white. It'd be like being permanently haunted by one's teenage attempts at poetry -- every trite cliche and overwrought line of it fossilized and staring up at you through amber.
So the April 27 edition, from memory (and if you don't like my impressions, CBC, put out a transcript and prove me wrong).
The story on the standoff in Fallujah was from one of their interchangeable trenchcoated hacks and attempted to paint it as the worst military disaster since Gallipoli -- the plucky jihadi had battled the finest light infantry in the world to a standstill and all Iraq was seething in sympathetic rebellion. In desperation, the Marines were calling for a ceasefire and negotiations. (The facts that the ceasefire was to try to minimize civilian casualties and the "negotiations" were for the unconditional surrender of the Ba'athtub ring didn't seem to bear mention.) Whatever, dude.
Unfortunately for the script, the Marines didn't seem quite so pessimistic. A grinning Marine officer said, "When we go on the offensive, you'll know it. We're just playing patty-cake with these guys right now."
Back to Peter Mansbridge at the studio, with his extra-special frowny face.
"But as some of us know, this is no game."
Why, thank you for that piercing insight, you twittering gasbag professional journalist, you.
Update:
In a letter to the editor [Apr. 28, no link] in the National Post, Nigel Wallbridge of Cochrane, Ontario seconds me and provides the actual quotes:
On Wednesday, the CBC's The National used its report on Falluja to sneer at American soldiers in Iraq and to imply that they were treating the Falluja "massacre" -- yes they used that word again -- as a game.U.S. Marine Captain Douglas Zembiec was the CBC's fall guy. Interviewed, apparently in the midst of the fighting, Capt. Zembiec's reply to an edited-out question was "We've been playing pat-a-cake with these insurgents; we have not begun to do offensive operations." Cut to the effortlessly superior Peter Mansbridge in Toronto who bravely retorts: "Perhaps, but few think of what's going on in Falluja as a game."
Of course, this smug, patronizing pseudo-riposte was not seen by Capt Zembiec nor was he allowed any kind of reply. How can the CBC justify using such cheap journalistic tricks, especially against a man who is putting his life on the line in Iraq?
Because they can, Nigel. Because they can.