From Media Matters:

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In June 5 reports on CNN's The Situation
Room and Fox News' Special Report, CNN correspondent Carol Costello, CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry, and Special Report host Brit Hume falsely suggested that only the Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence approved the committee's June 5 "Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information." In fact, the report had bipartisan support: Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel (NE) and Olympia Snowe (ME) endorsed the report and stated that it "accomplished its primary objective." As Costello noted, the report concluded that "the Bush administration misused intelligence to build its case [for war in Iraq] in 2003 and misled Americans about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda."

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Aren't we getting a little old for this?

Hasn't enough blood been spilled while people play their games of misinformation and propaganda, just to score political points and win the ability to commit even more heinous crimes on our watch?

This is exactly the sort of poor, inaccurate and untruthful information that explains why the traditional media is losing ground to blogs, and it helps explain the growing support and popularity behind the rise of the blogosphere and citizen journalists.

The story by Mike Corder of the Associated Press over on My Way (via TruthOut) began simply enough:

The Hague, Netherlands - The war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, Liberia's former president, heard its first testimony Monday and saw video of victims telling of being sexually assaulted or dismembered by rebels who plundered West African diamond fields.

[Emphasis mine.]

That one sentence got me thinking, particularly when I saw the term sexually assaulted.

Not to play down the other horrors like amputation that the victims underwent, but -- sexual assaults mentioned in the same sentence as "war crimes trial" caught my attention.