I‘m going to trivia tonight instead of a free Star Wars screening offered to me by a large corporate benefactor. So, I won’t be seeing the new film unless someone pays for my ticket. George Lucas has already taken enough of my money when I was duped into seeing his last two miserable films.

More so than the movie itself, what’s really irked me lately has been all the free publicity the film is receiving; particularly seeing this as the top story on CNN at 4:37 p.m. EST:

CNN sux0r

Yes, because the film’s release is so much more important than learning a live grenade was thrown at the President of the United States or that, for the first time in months, there’s movement on the judicial filibuster debate.

CNN published another atrocious piece of work today in its coverage of the George Galloway Senate hearings. It’s one of the most pitiful examples of he said-she said “journalism” (snark quote alert) I’ve ever read. What would I have liked to read? How about something that gave me some background on the oil-for-food allegations floating around that would give me an idea about whether they have merit or whether they’re complete fabrications? There must be, you know, some evidence somewhere to support or reject those claims. Instead, we get this trite drivel…

Galloway said he was “absolutely” convinced he had been vindicated from allegations that he received vouchers for 20 million barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“These people think they can smear people without them having the right to speak back and this time I got that right and I knocked them for six,” he told reporters before leaving the U.S.

He said after his appearance before the Senate panel Tuesday that his accusers had little credibility “outside of Washington.”

But the panel’s Republican chairman, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, hit back, telling media after the session that Galloway’s credibility was “very suspect.”

Galloway told CNN that while Saddam’s regime shared a “lot of responsibility” for deaths in Iraq, so too did the policies of Washington and London.

Galloway, an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, called the Senate panel’s investigation the “mother of all smokescreens” used to divert attention from the “pack of lies” that led to the 2003 invasion.

Novel concept time: gather facts, compare them, and see whose evidence stacks up instead of trusting the parties involved in the proceedings to tell you who “won.” Dare I say it, be something other than a conduit for opposing propaganda. I don’t give half a crap when these people say they won. What else are they going to say?

Bleached blonde CNN reporter: Mr. Galloway! Your thoughts on the proceedings?

George Galloway: The Senate really worked me over good. I am humbled by their on-point indictments of my arrogance, greed and stupidy.

I’ve never read or heard an interview that went like that either.

Someone needs to take CNN out back and put it out of its misery. It’s a worthless and lazy organization.

NOTE: I scrubbed an earlier published version of this post where I railed against the media and the new Star Wars movie in a profanity-laced tirade. The evidence is damning enough on its own without me having to swear at it.