Yes, the Establishment "press corps" is badly broken

My favorite moment (in one way, at least) during Thursday's Democratic Presidential debate came when the crowd booed Wolf Blitzer. He asked, "Senator Clinton, you always say, if you knew then what you know now, you wouldn't have voted like that. But why can't you just say right now that that vote was a mistake?" It was a "gotcha" question, because for whatever reason Clinton has consistently refused to characterize it as a "mistake" or to say she "regrets" it. But her answer was decent as far as it went, and clear about her position, including, "I think what no one could have fully appreciated is how obsessed this president was with this particular mission."

Blitzer's follow-up question was:

BLITZER: So, what I hear you saying - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that you were naive in trusting President Bush?

CLINTON: No, that's not what you heard me say.

(AUDIENCE BOOING)

Good try, Wolf. Good try. You know... (my emphasis)

To say the obvious, there are two problems with this. One is that I don't recall anyone from CNN asking Maverick McCain the night before how he can be so naive as to believe Savior-General Petraeus' claims about The Surge.

But, even more, how Wolf Blitzer or anyone representing CNN could ask such a question after their own rotten record on acting as little more than war propaganda conduits for Cheney's fake WMD claims is just beyond me. It's really shameless. It would have at least been a bit better if he had asked, "So what you're saying is that you were partially as foolish, reckless and disgracefully irresponsible as we here at CNN were in swallowing the administration's bogus prewar claims?"

Tags: establishment press, iraq war, mainstream media, mainstream press