Russert seemed to play gotcha with Dean. Why shouldn’t Dems see double standards?: “WHERE ARE STANDARDS (PART 2)! Russert seemed to play gotcha with Dean. Why shouldn’t Dems see double standards?
MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2003
EXTRA! CRANBERG SPEAKS! AGAIN! Kudos to the Post “Outlook” section for publishing Gilbert Cranberg’s piece on Colin Powell. We’ll have more on this topic by midweek. Of course, Colin Powell is King Untouchable; Cranberg’s report was completely ignored the first time it ran in a major paper (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/25/03). Maybe timorous pundits will even dare to ask Powell what happened this time.
RUSSERT PLAYS GOTCHA: Was Tim Russert trying to sandbag Dean with that question about the size of the military? Here at THE HOWLER, we can’t read minds, but it’s certainly hard not to wonder (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/27/03). Here’s the exchange from Meet the Press that ended with Dean, the Dem White House hopeful, displaying his woeful ignorance:
RUSSERT: Let’s talk about the military budget. How many men and women would you have on active duty?
DEAN: I can’t answer that question. And I don’t know what the answer is. I can tell you one thing, though. We need more troops in Afghanistan. We need more troops in Iraq…
RUSSERT: But how many troops—how many men and women do we now have on active duty?
DEAN: I can’t tell you the answer to that either. It’s—
RUSSERT: But as commander in chief, you should know that!
Bingo! Russert got to lecture Dean about what he should know as commander in chief. (When Dean told Russert his question was silly, his host only lectured him more.) But take a look at that exchange, and tell us why Dems shouldn”
::Tullycast:: 