NOTE: This is part of a continuing online novel. Here is the Table of Contents.

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It was Miles O’Brien who should be credited with the name, “Battle of Atlanta.”

The CNN space reporter and sometime-anchor was hanging around in the newsroom-set that is the network’s centerpiece, when the riot took place. He was seated, surrounded by junior producers and graphic artists, his suitcoat on the chair behind him – he’d report to make-up 10 minutes before air-time.

“Battle of Atlanta,” he mumbled. The artist beside him pulled up a still from the city’s Diorama, changed the gray uniforms to modern dress, changed the sex of a few at the back. O’Brien was thinking of his script, lost in what he might say with the 15 seconds he would get to describe the scene, when the artist nudged him on the arm.

“The second Battle of Atlanta,” O’Brien said a little later, on-air, “and this time the Union was routed. Hundreds of UAW members mowed down by Army troops in a protest against lay-offs that went too far. Satchi Kato is on the scene, in the northeast Atlanta suburb of Doraville. Satchi?”

“Miles, I have covered many stories in this town over the last 30 years but never anything like this.” Kato was wearing a warm-up jacket, and with minimal make-up looked all of her age, early 50s. “I’m standing on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard at Interstate 285, a major Atlanta intersection that has been completely closed down by police.

“In front of me, if our camera can pick up those ambulances, is where the workers stood when the shooting started. There are ambulances here from every part of the metro area, and if our camera can pan over a little to the right, you might make out rows of feet. Those are bodies of the dead lined up, waiting for the medical examiner to look at them.

“We don’t know exactly what started this, but a helicopter crew from our local affiliate WSB-TV was there.” While the grainy footage ran, Kato looked over at a monitor and narrated.

“We now have with us WSB traffic reporter “Captain” Herb Emory, who was in the chopper that took those pictures.” The dark-haired, overweight middle-aged man beside her looked pale.

“I’ve covered some people stories here, like the stock trader who went on a shooting spree in Buckhead 3 years ago, but I have never seen anything like this. I had been covering the morning rush down Georgia 400 and we were cutting back for one more look at the Dunwoody Family -- that's what we call this exit and those just to the west -- before heading in when I saw a line of military vehicles coming up Peachtree Industrial Blvd at an unusual rate of speed. I got permission to stay on the scene and tried to stay far enough away so as not to interfere with law enforcement. When the shooting started, those jitters you saw on the picture were my pilot and I jumping in our seats. We could not believe it.”

“Do you have any idea what started it?” Kato asked.

Emory shook his head. “The first thing we saw was the crowd bolt around the building and toward the plant entrance. I understand now these were workers from the plant who had been furloughed owing to slow sales, something that does happen from time to time. It was when they were between the plant security and a line of approaching army troops that the shooting started. All I know is what I saw.”

On WSB radio Neal Boortz hadn’t seen a thing. He just had Emory’s report to go on. But he was certain of what happened nonetheless. That was his job, to be certain.

“Every citizen needs to understand that when the police give you an order, then it’s an order,” he said. “You don’t bolt and run like a bunch of sheep. When you do that you become a mob and the authorities have to do their job. We have to maintain order. It’s tragic what happened, and I’m afraid the cops and Army kids who were part of this will have a hard time living with themselves, but the people who ran must take responsibility. Bill from Decatur you’re on.”

Bill was usually an Amen Corner to Boortz, a go-to guy whenever the host said something that might be obnoxious. “You have got to be kidding me, Neal. You have got to be kidding. We just saw hundreds of our neighbors gunned down before our eyes, Neal, and you’re OK with that.”

“I’m not exactly what you’d call OK with it, Bill.”

“You’re excusing it, Neal. That’s just as bad. If we can’t depend on the Army to show some restraint in these situations what’s happened to us?”

“I’m certain there will be an inquiry, Bill.”

“Inquiry my be-hind, Neal,” said Bill from Decatur, careful to stay on the good side of new FCC rules. “This ain’t Fall-U-ja. You can’t mow down American citizens like this was Fall-U-ja, Neal, no matter what. You start doing that and there’s a lot of old boys with guns and pick-up trucks going to start playing some nasty games on folks. Shooting people down on the streets like that means anarchy, Neal, and people on both sides will find it unforgiveable.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Arrest that Army man, first. We can get new officers. And any officers who were with him.”

“That would be a courts-martial, Bill.”

“No, sir, a public trial. A PUBLIC trial. If this gets covered up it’s going to be worse than even I imagine. And right now I’m having very bad dreams. Very bad dreams, Neal.”

“I can tell that, Bill. We’ll be right back after this from Trotter Co. basement waterproofing and foundation repair.”

All day long similar things happened, and the redder the state the more severe it was. In Houston, in Dallas, in Tulsa, in Boise, men whose anti-government instincts had been cowed since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 were speaking up. Some were comparing Bush to Clinton.

By the time Fox host Bill O’Reilly prepared to go on for his regular evening broadcast he faced two sets of marching orders. His bosses were demanding he come down hard on the protestors, that he call them Communists, compare them to Italians. His listeners (and he’d gotten an earful from them all afternoon) were demanding that he call the troops to account, that he go all the way up the chain of command if necessary.

He tried to do that, very carefully. He questioned the military spokesman he was given carefully. He asked him about procedures and protocols concerning non-violent protest. The spokesman brought him up short, said the presence of guns changed the whole situation, and the fact the troops had been fired on justified their actions.

“Do we have any proof of that?” O’Reilly asked the spokesman quietly, while a producer yelled in his ear to back off. “Have any guns been retrieved from the scene to your knowledge?”

The spokesman reddened visibly on-screen. O’Reilly didn’t know what else to do so he called for a commercial. When the network came back business host Neil Cavuto was “sitting-in” for a host who was “indisposed.” Cavuto apologized profusely to the spokesman, then brought on a Fox “military analyst” who described a map of the Doraville area in the same way he’d been describing the city of Falluja a few weeks before.

By 9 PM the rumor was all over the Internet. Bill O’Reilly had been fired.