Look at what passes for debate in politics, by politicians and the public alike. Aggression and animosity blankett everything. Aggression with words is only one step away from aggression by deeds.
Ours is not a 'civil' society, so we should not be surprised that out children are equally addicted to aggression.
As a matter of fact, it began with words. . The girl that was beaten was bad-mouthing others on My Space, much like many blogs and talk jocks do.
Of course, the children involved should not be excused, but neither should the adults who laid the groundwork tor them.

It takes a culture to lead to these incidents.

Also,Joe, thanks for reminding us that even if Dr. Phil doesn't go with the story eventually his show will still have benefited from the publicity.

I've watched the Dr. Phil show a couple times and when he is moderating discussion among people with issues to work out- that's fine. I never much cared for it but I thought it was benign and relatively harmless. But Dr. Phil does like to tell people what to do and he does like to meddle. I'm afraid the show has gone from its original intent to being a “media ambulance chaser”, so caught up in ratings that it has sold itself to the devil.

I think this is one of the problems with our country today- people's attention are only caught by dramatic scenes. There is very little civil discourse. Thankfully we still have shows like 60 Minutes and the Sunday morning shows, most of which are even. Too bad they air when people are in church…