I saw this on several blogs today and at first I was of the same mind as the others, but as the day has gone on, I think there is an unanswered question.

The situation is that David Shuster was interviewing Rep Marsha Blackburn, and he decided to sandbag her on the air by demanding if she knew the name of the last GI killed from her distract. 

She didn't, and gleefully, he trotted out the name to shame her:

SHUSTER: Let's talk about the public trust. You represent of course a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?

MARSHA BLACKBURN: The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq from my district? I do not know.

SHUSTER: OK, his name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the ninth, 2007. How come you didn't know the name?

Now obviously the only reason HE knew was because he was setting up operation duck shoot on his show and he needed ammo, but there was still a little problem:

Jeremy Bohannon was NOT from her district.

Oops.  He issued an apology later for screwing up the name.  But despite that, and aside from the fact that he would not apologize for playing duck hunt with a guest, I have a few problems with this.

Now, most bloggers are chortling at him falling in his own pit, and indeed he scored a minor own goal.  I see it as minor only because she still didn't know, so his point was made, unless there has not been any killed in her district.

But I would also argue that most Representatives and Senators do not carry a list of the war dead with them.  Maybe they should, but they don't.  I would bet happily most in Washington would reach for a staff member to find out if asked.

And, I would bet that Shuster does not know the latest dead soldier from his own home town.

But.  There is still one question, and to my dismay, no one seems to be asking it.  It is:

"Did David Shuster and MSNBC give any thought to the family of  Private Bohannon, and what using him as a tool to play 'gotcha' with a US Representative would do to their feelings?"  

Dead only 6 weeks, and now he is the fodder in a partisan pissing match, and on national television to boot.

How cruel and insensitive can you be.  Did that putz even pause to consider that the family may want to have time to mourn their loss without having to face it on TV during dinner.

David Shuster is not only a hack journalist, he is an insensitive bastard.