Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Several Dead, 30 Wounded in Israel Homicide Bombing

--headline of a breaking story at Fox News

I'm sorry, but every time Fox resorts to this tic of right-wing political correctness it sticks in my craw. Several people are dead -- is there any need for the word "Homicide" in that headline?

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you have to understand that it's politically incorrect at Fox News, and elsewhere on the Right, to call such a terrorist act what rational people call it -- what CNN calls it in its headline:

Five Killed in Suicide Bombing Near Tel Aviv

Yes -- it's a suicide bombing.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: When you know that the bomber committed suicide, you know something about that bomber's willingness to part from a reasonable attachment to self-preservation. When your news source follows right-wing-PC diktats and calls the attack a "homicide bombing," you don't know (at least from the headline) that salient fact about the act. (The Fox story does go on to say that "the bombing left at least four dead, including the bomber," but the use of the word "suicide" is apparently strictly forbidden -- it never appears in the story.)

(UPDATE: On what has turned out to be a truly horrible day in the Middle East, CNN now speaks of two suicide bombers, while Fox sticks with "homicide bombers" and stubbornly avoids the un-PC "s" word.)

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