Except we don’t see Anakin slaughter children. It’s implied–no,obvious–that he did so, but it’s not shown. He walks into the Jedi temple, one of the younglings asks him what is going on, and by way of answer, Anakin turns on his light-saber. The kid then looks uncertain and scared, and then we cut away.
This leads to one of my major problems with the movie. Obi-Wan and Yoda learn that Anakin has betrayed them by watching a video recording of the fight in Palpatine’s office. This makes no sense, and immediately took me out of the story when I watched the movie the first time. Why do they have access to such a recording? If they have a video feed to the Chancellor’s office, why did the Jedi Council want Anakin to spy on Palpatine in the first place? It would make much more sense for Yoda & Obi-Wan to be watching video of Skywalker murdering the children, which took place on their own territory and which they would easily be able to get hold of. But Lucas looked into the abyss and blinked; he just didn’t have it in him to show his fallen hero murdering the kids. Ep III is a much lesser movie because of that.
The chancellor might be smart enough to avoid incriminating himself in a potentially bugged area, but trusting enough to say something to a apparently-devoted long-time confidant who has saved his life on multiple occasions. Furthermore, if they knew about the rule of two, they could have guessed the hidden sith lord connected to Palpatine might play his hand by trying to seduce the powerful and passion-fueled young Anakin to the dark side.
I recall that one now. If you ask me, Anakin’s actions there were considerably worse than what he did in the Mandalore arc. Killing the guy with the bomb in the latter was simple self-defense; he was about to blow up the ship, after all. It wasn’t even morally iffy: just pragmatic, albeit cold-blooded.
Contrariwise, he left the guy to die in “Senate Spy” because he was a rival for Padme’s affections. And he didn’t have to leave the guy to die. The guy’s connection with the Separatists was burned; it would have been wiser to take him back to Coruscant and question him. That was murder by proxy. Mal Reynolds wouldn’t have done it.