The Anti-Clinton Situation Room

I've noticed, not for the first time, that Wolf Blitzer, Jack Cafferty, and Candy Crowley seem to have a thing about the Clintons.

We are some days past the race/gender flap, but today, for instance, Wolfman is interviewing Bob Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, to broadcast Johnson's apology to Obama for a pro-Clinton remark. Never mind that attacking candidates outright for drug use has been a staple of politics at least for 18 years--remember the "I didn't inhale" comment? For some reason it has been deemed appropriate for Johnson even to allude to drug use that Obama himself acknowledged. Not that I care about that. What I care about is, my, how things change when a Clinton runs for office.

Candy Crowley has always struck me as unctious in her anti-Democrat, anti-Clinton comments. I won't call it reporting. Today, she's on their backs about Bill's enthusiastic on-the-trail support for Hillary. Shameful, Bill! Well, actually, no. He should stay home when the senior Bushes don't introduce Mitt or anyone else. Not that I care who endorses whom. I don't. I just think the rules ought to apply across the board, but that's old-fashioned me.

Cafferty carps about the Clintons all the time. Not so much about the Republican candidates.

I don't remember licencing CNN as the voice of the GOP. I must have missed that memo.

Where, oh where, is the "liberal media" when we need them?

On Iraq, the Creds Belong to Michael Ware

In my opinion, only the CNN corresponent in Iraq, the Australian journalist Michael Ware, is speaking credibly. He's there, he's experienced, he does his homework, he tells it like it is, and he doesn't have an ax to grind.

There are consequences for invading Iraq, and one of them is that there will be no easy or quick way out.

Whether we like it or not, Iraq is a bleeding ground and a training ground for Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we invaded.

Al Qaeda lives for pressure.

You recall that we announced that we would go into Iraq alone, if need be. At that point,we guaranteed that we'd go in alone. What incentive did France, Germany, and the rest have to spend their kids' lives and treasure if we were willing to do it all?

Similarly, though I've never heard anyone point it out, Iraq has nothing whatsoever to gain from standing up as long as we're willing to do the heavy lifting. As long as we stand up, Iraq will sit down. End of story.

I'm with Cafferty this far: We've been jerked around.

OBut he and Wolf and Chris and everyone else continue pushing the fiction that the Democrats in Congress alone can do something about this mess. That's a lie. The Democrats are pretty much in line. The pressure should be on the swing-votes in the GOP. Fact.

Question for Wolf

Dear Mr. Blitzer,

Just wondering: When will you be interviewing the seven soldiers who wrote the anti-war op ed in the New York Times? You know, the one that says:

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and non-commissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manage-able and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

(Re: that disclaimer: I don't think there's much danger of that.)

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of CNN, when will Jack Cafferty stop giving the Republicans in Congress a total free pass? The truth, Jack, is that Democrats hold the House and Senate by unworkably slim majorities, and members from both parties vote.