CNN's latest self-promotional 30-sec ad includes a 2-sec clip from today's "Saddam speech" while the barker says, "Saddam Remains Defiant".

It swims past quickly in a fast-moving stream of other splashy clips. It's a commercial. It's less than 2 seconds! Trivial. What's the harm? Why should anyone even bother to comment?

This miniscule clip & audio caption not only ignores significant doubt among credible analysts about the video's validity, it promotes the opposite assumption: that Saddam is truly alive & well, and that his regime remains fully in control of all Iraq.

Is it somehow anti-American or anti-war to include it (with said caption) in a commercial? No. But it is deceptive, gratuitously negative (assuming you're not Saddam, an Iraqi minister or Fedeyeen Saddam member), and inflammatory.

Was such deception intentional? No, except perhaps to the extent that it was chosen to grab eyes, quicken pulse rates, and therefore improve ratings.

As a promo, it will get repeated many, many times until the next promo replaces it. So the speech will get far more airplay than CNN's own news stories have implied it deserves, considering its dubious nature.

To me, this is a revealing example of mass media bias seamlessly woven, probably unintentionally, so as to pass by without notice. This is the plankton on which mass public opinion feeds, from which (necesssarily) media ratings thrive, and sadly, by which proper perspective is polluted.