Like children who heard one of their parents say a naughty word then spent the next week giggling about it, our media have spent the last 24 hours focused on the fact that Sen. Carl Levin, while quoting an email from a Goldman Sachs employee, said the word “shitty” repeatedly during a congressional hearing yesterday.

Neil Cavuto today said he “can't get over this,” and it's “all anyone is talking about, still.” For a moment, I thought Cavuto might be launching into a stinging critique of the media, whose coverage -- after a day of congressional questioning of Goldman Execs over potentially scandalous practices at their company -- amounted to, “They said a no-no word!” But that moment quickly passed.

Notice anything missing from that rant? Cavuto failed to mention at any point that both Levin and Sen. Claire McCaskill were quoting the Goldman employee's email, which described the deal in question as “shitty.” I'd say that might answer Neil's questions about “why the coarse language?”

In fact, Martha Stewart tried to explain this to him on his show about 20 minutes before he ran this segment. Cavuto was undeterred, claiming that Levin “wasn't quoting” and that her explanation was “a stretch.” Watch as Cavuto tries to steer the conversation toward the all-important use of the word “shitty,” then is shot down by Stewart, whom he describes as the “Dean of Decorum”:

Cavuto was so upset by the use of the word that he played it (while bleeped) repeatedly on his show, then cleared up any confusion about what the word might be, by saying it “wasn't the word 'pretty,' but the other one.”

There's a word for that kind of reporting.