David Chater has me hoppin' mad!

[Glenn X]

David Chater, who's a correspondent for Britain's Sky News (and whose reports are regularly simulcast on the Fox News Channel, as both Sky News and FNC are owned by the same parent company), has me righteously pissed right now. I must confess that this is not the first time Chater has said something that has angered me.

For example, there was the instance several weeks back when, during a report on a rocket attack on a civilian area of Baghdad -- an attack that the U.S. military has since denied any involvement in and pointed the finger of blame in the direction of the Iraqi regime, alleging that perhaps they attacked their own people to falsely implicate the Americans and stir up anti-American hostilities on the so-called Arab Street -- Chater was asked on-air about the possibility of the Iraqi government's claims of U.S. culpability in the matter being false. Chater responded incredulously, with something along the lines of: "Oh, I don't know about that." Chater then continued, "There's a war of propaganda on both sides. The U.S. military's briefings are very much slanted to what they want you to know."

Yes, ladies and gents, David Chater just drew a comparison between U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks and Iraqi Minister of (dis)Information Mohammed Sahid Al Saha (a.k.a. "Baghdad Bob").

Dear Mr. Chater, surely you must recognize that while Brig. Gen. Brooks is not the sort to simply "open up the candy store" to reporters, allowing them to see and hear about whatever information they'd like (no matter how security-sensitive it may be), he's certainly not one to just plainly make sh*t up, as "Baghdad Bob" has been doing on an almost daily basis for at least the past couple of weeks. I mean, you do recognize this, don't you, David?

Then there was the ground incursion by American military forces into the heart of Baghdad yesterday, to which Chater (whose bio at Sky News.com lists no credentials in military science) remarked: "To be frank, I don't know what they [the U.S. military] are up to. I don't know what it is that they're trying to accomplish. They seem to be just tearing through the city very quickly, not trying to hang onto any land or fortify their positions at all as they go. It's hard for me to see any semblance of a 'plan' behind this."

What Chater left out of his report was the fact that he'd ventured nary a step off the grounds of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad -- where he and most of the rest of the Western press corps have been ensconced (and forcibly so by "Baghdad Bob" & Co.) -- to actually survey with his own eyes what U.S. ground forces were up to. No, he simply relied on what he'd heard from his media colleagues and then offered up his own bit of speculation, er, I mean analysis on the American ground advance into Badgdad, inexplicably characterizing it, despite its success in taking out numerous enemy combatants while losing precious few of its own soldiers, in an exceedingly damning (and ultimately misinformed) fashion.

But then there was today, which took the f*cking cake.

Reporting outside of the aforementioned Palestine Hotel, which apparently had just been fired upon by an American tank that, in turn, was fired upon by a sniper(s) operating somewhere near or within the Palestine Hotel, Chater went on-air (decked out in full body armor and a big-@ss helmet) decrying "the audacity of the Americans to launch an unprovoked attack on journalists!" Unprovoked? You see, according to Chater, he'd heard no gunfire -- as from a sniper -- before the hotel was struck by the tank.

I guess Chater, despite the many hours he's logged covering various hotspots around the globe, has never heard of the wacky notion of a sniper using a silencer on his weapon. Or maybe it's just that Chater doesn't like to engage in speculation. No, he leaves that to "Baghdad Bob" and Brig. Gen. Brooks. Of course, he has no trouble engaging in speculation when it concerns the strategy of the American ground offensive into Baghdad, impugning the very wisdom of that strategy.

Oh, that's right. That's not speculation! That's just good, honest, unbiased analysis, right, Mr. Chater? :jerkoff:

Here's another dose of Chater's good, honest, unbiased analysis: "Maybe the [American] tank was aiming for another target and missed..." Then, seemingly correcting himself, perhaps feeling that suggestion to be too vague, Chater asserted: "I saw a tank coming in our [the hotel's] direction. I saw it seemingly aiming at us -- dead on! [Glenn X's note: Wait a minute, David. The tank just went from 'seemingly' aiming at you and the Palestine Hotel to aiming at y'all 'dead on'? What gives, Dave?] Then it fired." Chater continues: "I don't know what they [the U.S. military] expects us to do? What, do they want us to hang white flags out of our windows -- hang them out as they fire on us?!"

Mr. Chater, I understand that you're very shaken and very upset right now. Maybe you had friends from the Reuters news service who were injured in the blast at the hotel. You probably feel very vulnerable right now. I totally understand that. And what happened to those folks from Reuters was tragic. Truly tragic.

But understand this, Mr. Chater: You and your colleagues are operating in the middle of a war zone right now. Even if "Baghdad Bob" hadn't ordered you and the rest of the reporters to hole up in one spot, the Palestine Hotel (effectively using you all as human shields while one of his sh*tbag Iraqi compatriots apparently sniped at American forces at or near that very same hotel), your lives would still be in great danger for the sheer fact that y'all are reporting from an area of the world in which two opposing military forces are currently shooting at and trying to kill each other!

As the old adage goes, David, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.