I don’t know if these conservatives were praying or rubbing a lucky rabbit’s foot, but it appears they got their wish on May 11, when horrifying footage of murder of Nick Berg was released to world. Since most conservatives are intellectually dishonest, they needed something to misdirect their audience’s attention from Abu Ghraib photographs. Conservatives like Michael Reagan condemned Democrats for “politicizing” Abu Ghraib photographs. Only now conservatives have politicized Nick Berg photographs, as a counter to what happened at Abu Ghraib.

Indeed, now people like Sean Hannity could make an apples-and-oranges comparison to what happened at Abu Ghraib to what happened to Nick Berg.

On May 12 Hannity and Colmes, Sean Hannity made case: “We’ve learned difference between mistreatment, which is wrong, and atrocities. Because this is an atrocity what they did to this guy (Berg).” See? While “mistreatment” of prisoners is bad, it’s not as bad as an American being killed by terrorists. Guest Oliver North did his best to minimize what had happened at Abu Ghraib: “…for 13 or 14 days now, all we have seen on front pages of America's newspapers is a group of obviously twisted young people with leashes and weird sex acts, kind of thing that you might find on any college campus nowadays, being perpetrated by people in uniform.”

Obviously there’s a difference in volunteering for a hazing ritual and being forced to participate. I think North is hoping audience isn’t paying attention. And yes, what happened to Nick Berg was horrible, but his death shouldn’t be used as a way to minimize abuse at Abu Ghraib or dismiss it as much ado about nothing. One thing we can count on is conservatives using Nick Berg’s death for their own political gain.

About author: Scott C. Smith is a freelance writer from Beaverton, Oregon. Scott’s columns have appeared at Democratic Underground and The Smirking Chimp web sites. In addition to his weekly column, Scott writes for his web magazine, What’s in Scott’s Head, at http://www.scottcsmith.net.