Oh wait, maybe the Iranians aren’t the ones trying to start World War 3.

Alas, the Times does good work. Apparently, Iran isn’t pursuing nuclear weapons to destroy us, Israel and our freedom. Apparently there are times you can believe some of the things about Iran, like “civilian nuclear program” and “Iran Generally Truthful About Nukes“. I know, I’m way too cynical. But seriously, nobody could have seen this one coming. Quote of the new millennium, right here:

“In interviews on Monday, some administration officials expressed skepticism about the conclusions reached in the new report, saying they [political appointees] doubted that American intelligence agencies had a firm grasp of the Iranian government’s intentions.” Naturally, italics mine.

Hostage situation at Hillary Clinton’s Rochester, NH headquarters

A hostage situation is developing at Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters in Rochester, New Hampshire. The Edwards and Obama in the area have also been evacuated. The hostage taker is said to have a bomb duct taped to his chest. He currently has two hostages, after releasing a woman with young baby. Here are some links:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043358/

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/30/clinton.office/index.html

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/hostage-situation-at-clinton-office-in-nh/?hp

Bill prefers briefs. Hillary prefers both diamonds AND pearls. CNN considers itself a news agency.

Deja vu. The heat on Hillary Clinton is building. Every move her campaign’s made over the past few weeks has been ridiculed, slandered, and scrutinized by every reporter, pundit, and blogger under the sun.

Most recently we saw “DiamondsorPearlsGate” at the Democratic debate on November 15. This is one of the more interesting events in the primary season to date, for a couple of reasons.

We had the Clinton campaign threatening that Blitzer better not “Pull a Russert” at the debate. Blitzer claimed he was not pressured by anybody to act one way or another at the debate, but who knows. What should be a flashing red light that the Clinton’s people probably did exert some kind of pressure him is the fact that the campaign came out and congratulated Blitzer for doing such an “outstanding” job.

Now, down to the issue. Clinton was asked by an audience member whether she preferred diamonds or pearls. She rolled with it and said she likes both. A softball question, without a doubt. What makes it interesting is that Bill Clinton was asked a question along the same lines during the MTV “Rock the Vote” campaign in 1992: “Boxers or briefs?”

Here’s the problem. Clearly, CNN was not unaware of the dramatic symmetry between the questions and the two Clintons, separated by 15 years. They had to be aware of what they were doing, there’s simply too much staging that goes on for it to be a theatrical coincidence.

But when it happened in 1992 it was on MTV. CNN is now taking journalistic cues from MTV? A so-called “trusted” television news outlet is mimicking the network that produces Laguna Beach?

A softball question in response to “pressure” from the Clinton campaign? Maybe.

A PR stunt? Yup.

Bad journalism? Absolutely.

It reminds me of the time when Jon Stewart went on CNN’s Crossfire, and thrashed Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for being the political hacks that that are, and for “hurting America”. It’s one of my fondest and proudest moments in television history. It shook up the CNN producers quite a bit, and eventually lead to the show’s cancellation. The best part about the interview was the mere fact that at one point, the Crossfire hosts, who are supposed to be the “real” journalists, grilled the guy on a Comedy Central show about why he, the comedian, wasn’t asking the guests on his show tougher questions.

Such astounding irony only reveals itself in such humorous ways once in a blue moon.

Follow up: Hillary Clinton and question planting.

This question planting “goof” may be turning into a mini-scandal (Here are links to part 1 and part 2). CNN sat down for an interview with Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, the college student who first brought to light Hillary Clinton’s preference to only give answers to questions she knows beforehand.

Yes, everybody does it. Political campaigns are fanatical, psychotic PR micro-managers that grow stronger in the soft glow of prime-time television and softball questions about the “issues.” Yes, they’re targeting Hillary Clinton because she’s Hillary Clinton.

But maybe the incident will signal to others who’ve seen question planting during the Obama, Edwards, Thompson, or Giuliani campaigns to blow the whistle and come forward. And that just might force these political campaigns to be a little more honest, and the candidates to be a little more candid with their answers.

Then again, it could all backfire, and the campaigns will just become more secretive and shady. Who knows.

Spinning The Surge

As The Surge ™ in Iraq winds down, it’ll be interesting to see who takes a story like this and tries to claim it’s evidence of a partial withdrawal. If you add 30k troops to 140k and then remove that same 30k, you haven’t withdrawn at all. You’re just back where you started a year ago with a couple of hundred dead soldiers and a many thousands of dead civilians.

Oops, sorry. Hillary Clinton’s campaign accidentally rigged a town hall meeting.

Yeah, sure Hillary Clinton. Your campaign planted favorable environmental questions at a Q&A in Iowa, but it isn’t standard practice. It just happened this one time, accidentally. Right. Get the full story here.

Here’s a quote: “‘They were canned,’ said Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. ‘One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],’ she said.”

What’s a little bit disturbing is that this story got buried in the weekend news, even though it happened on a Tuesday. Hillary Clinton’s PR machine played off this little slip-up pretty easily, which says to me that this isn’t erratic or accidental policy, just a hiccup in the system.

A look at foreign fighters in the media

I just peeped this video about foreign jihadists fighting for the Taliban from the New York Times website. It’s a pretty rare that we get to see the face behind a Taliban bombmaker or suicide bomber (although the suspects in the interview desperately maintain that they were merely tourists, there are no guilty men in prison, after all). But I have to wonder out loud whether we’ll ever see an interview as straightforward as this one with Arab suspected of suicide or other terror attacks. The imprisoned Siberian looks distinctly more European or western (like us) than the image we’re usually given of the average “jihadi”. Even though the guy’s probably guilty as sin, David Rohde still gives him a relatively fair shake in the interview. Can we expect this more personal, fair, and human look at “the terrorists” even if the face is Afghani Taliban fighter, or an Arab IED maker from Iraq?