Try to imagine Fox saying this

This from a Reuters dispatch titled "Trial could give Saddam powerful platform."

Rumsfeld, now U.S. defense secretary, visited Iraq and met with Saddam 20 years ago as a special envoy from then-President Ronald Reagan, promoting a close military and commercial relationship that only ended when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Washington helped Saddam obtain intelligence and military equipment and, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control Document placed in the Senate record last year, Iraq also obtained from the United States biological agents that could have been turned into weapons.

The United States at the time was supporting Iraq in its war against the old U.S. nemesis Iran, and Washington stood mutely by when Saddam used chemical weapons both against Iranian forces and against Kurdish people inside Iraq.

What got me about that is how casual the statement is. Nothing special is made of it, there's neither outrage nor any dodge that it's a "controversial claim" or that "some make the accusation that." It's just straight reporting.

Understand, this is not a slam on Reuters. It's praise. "Washington supplied Iraq with intelligence, military equipment, materials for bioweapons, and 'stood mutely by' while Saddam murdered thousands with chemical weapons." I've been trying - and failing - to imagine a single major US media outlet making such straightforward statements, especially that last phrase, so potent in its simplicity.

We know intellectually how spineless the corporate media is. Sometimes the awareness has a special clarity to it. This was such a moment for me.