"Flag draped coffins...a policy that has been in place for almost 20 years"today's MSM talking point

[underpants]

As seen on Morning Joe a few minutes ago.


The "Dover Test"
History

Early examples

The return of US casualties created difficulties for a US government for the first time during the Vietnam War, where the public opinion changed against the war during the conflict. On December 21, 1989, during the invasion of Panama, President George Herbert Walker Bush prohibited media coverage of returning casualties, apparently angered by a split screen, showing him giving a news briefing on one half of the screen, and returning caskets on the other half.

In the first Iraq War, the government banned media outlets from showing any returning deceased at Dover.

Recent examples

Operation Restore Hope in Mogadishu, Somalia, could be said to have failed the Dover test after the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3, 1993, when the mutilated bodies of US soldiers were shown on the news. Public support quickly fell and U.S. forces were soon withdrawn. During November 2000, the Clinton administration established a rule prohibiting any press coverage of returning US war casualties. However, this rule was rarely enforced. During the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, photos of returning war casualties were frequently shown on the news.

Iraq war and post-occupation

The Dover test was most recently mentioned by the press in regard to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration tried to avoid having to pass the Dover test by enforcing the rule from the end of the Clinton administration. Tami Silicio, a worker for a military contractor in Kuwait took photos of the coffins of returning casualties, which made their way to the front pages. Subsequently she and her husband were terminated by the contractor. Shortly thereafter a journalist from The Memory Hole requested casualty photos under the Freedom of Information Act, and received a number of pictures. Some photographs at the site were later identified as the coffins of Space Shuttle Columbia crewmembers, not military casualties. The Bush administration was displeased, and has prohibited the future release of photos to the media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_test

[ColbertWatcher]

1. I'd like to see the image of Pappy's split screen.

I've looked but cannot find a screengrab or a video.