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Oh!pinion weblog, Feb. 28 2004

  Blitzer does a number on Kerry, his speech
   Continued
.

Kerry: "We had him in our grasp more than two years ago, definitively within our grasp at Tora Bora. But George Bush held U.S. forces back and instead called on Afghan warlords."
Blitzer: "Experts say that episode had more to do with decisions by ground commanders in Afghanistan than with the president."

Gee, Wolf, who might those "experts" be? (Our guess is that they work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.)

   " . . . Kerry implies President Bush does not grasp the complexities of a global war on terror, saying it's not just a checklist from a deck of cards. Then he gives a checklist of his own."
   Kerry: "The Mideast peace process, disdained for 14 months by the Bush administration, is paralyzed. North Korea and Iran continue their quest for nuclear weapons. Weapons which, one day, could land in the hands of terrorists."
   Blitzer: "Kerry promises to appoint an envoy of real stature to the Middle East, and mentions Bill Clinton by name. He proposes the next CIA director be in effect an intelligence czar who would oversee all agencies including those under the Pentagon's umbrella, a development which one expert says would overhaul the intelligence community drastically."

It's becoming clear Blitzer has a bad unnamed "expert" habit going. We suspect this is the same expert who was so forthcoming about the Tora Bora incident.

   ". . . But in line after line, Kerry cannot resist jabbing Mr. Bush's world view, and his associations."
   Kerry: "The president's budget for the democracy efforts around the world, including the entire Islamic world, is less than 3 percent of what this administration gives Halliburton."
   Blitzer: "The Bush campaign dismissed the speech as full of defeatist rhetoric and factual inaccuracies. It also criticized Senator Kerry for voting against some increases in defense spending in military weapons programs over the years. For more on the GOP's take on Kerry's speech and more, let's turn to Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota. He's joining us now live from Minneapolis.
   "Senator, thank you for joining us. On one of the most serious charges that Senator Kerry made that the president messed up the capture of Osama bin Laden. What do you make of that?"

At this point, Coleman weighs in with a 226-word rejection of Kerry's points. Blitzer interrupts to toss Coleman a marshmallow:

"The major thrust, though, of his criticism is that the president has needlessly alienated key U.S. allies in the war on terror because of the unilateral, quote, actions the U.S. took against Iraq, and is making matters worse for the U.S. What do you make of; what do you say to that specific charge?"

   Coleman then delivers a 150-word response.
   So, altogether, we get a setup piece designed to undermine a key Kerry point. We get a few extremely brief, selected snippets of Kerry making his speech. We get Blitzer's clearly hostile characterization of Kerry and what he had to say. Plus, we get Republican Sen. Coleman getting two nice, big chunks of face time with which to contradict and try to discredit Kerry's points.
   What we don't get is a clear, uninterrupted, uninterpreted run of Kerry making his points or a Kerry spokesman to defend the senator and his speech.
   This makes us wonder if Blitzer is bucking for a job over at ol' "fair and balanced," where he and his one-sided, do-a-number brand of "hard news" reporting would fit right in.    For balance, here is a portion of Kerry's speech, as reported by the New York Times:

"Kerry referred to reports that Pakistani forces may be moving in to capture al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, in remote areas along the Afghanistan border, but criticized Bush for failing to capture him earlier.
"`We've heard that news before,' Kerry said. `We had him in our grasp more than two years ago, definitely in our grasp, at Tora Bora but George Bush held U.S. forces back and instead called on Afghan warlords with no loyalty to our cause to finish the job. We all hope that the outcome this time will be different.'"

Interestingly, the Times story also mentioned Coleman:

"The Bush campaign also organized a conference call for reporters with Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Jon Kyl of Arizona . . . The senators argued that Kerry's record belies his tough anti-terrorism rhetoric . . ."

Looks like Blitzer is plugged right into the Bush campaign, a valued member of the team.

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