Striking contrast on the cable news networks at 10 p.m. Monday:

• Fox Newsie Greta van Susteren was in Boston to view the remains of Martha Coakley

• Thrillin‘ Chris Matthews, MSNBC’s video savant, was in a TV town hall meeting about his favorite topic – Barack Obama

• And CNN’s Anderson Cooper was in Haiti, where he snatched a young boy – who’d just been hit in the head by a chunk of concrete tossed off a roof – out of the path of a mob of looters. Cooper – on-camera but to all appearances oblivious to it – passed the boy, his head bleeding profusely, to safety. Clearly, the journalists’ dilemma was no dilemma at all to Cooper.

You can argue about CNN’s use – or misuse – of Cooper’s actions in promoting the network.

But it’s hard to argue that he was wrong to do what he did.