There is an abundance of morbidity engulfing the media in these days before the new year. Death is the new Life of the of the party. From James Brown to Gerald Ford to the freshly executed Saddam Hussein. But let’s not forget that December of 2006 was also the deadliest month of the year for American soldiers in Iraq. And it wasn’t so good for Iraqis either.

But the media soldiers on in it’s inimatable fashion, finding ever new ways to stun the senses. Last night, shortly after the Hanging of the Year, the debate began as to whether photos and video of Saddam’s demise should be broadcast or published. But they didn’t even wait for the debate to get heated up before hyping such broadcasts with teasers and promos. Here’s how Fox presented it:

But perhaps a more interesting visual account was this from CNN:

What’s wrong with this picture?

A solemn moment that is puncuated by the network’s crawl – a quote from Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie:

“It was an Iraqi operation from A to Z. The Americans were not present during the hour of the execution. They weren’t even in the building.”

“From A to Z” – ? Why would an Iraqi asserting that Americans were out of the loop use a descriptor from the English alphabet? This is perhaps a picked nit, but it just seems that this language illustrates how closely Americans are aligned with everything that is occurring in the land they are occupying, whether they want to admit it or not.