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I know a lot of people watched CNN during the First Gulf War (the "good gulf war") and came to love the network's exciting style of round the clock reporting and showing that same clip of Saddam brandishing the shotgun over and over. I thought the network was just the lyin' propaganda arm of the government and I couldn't stand to watch it. Nothing's changed in 15 years. Here's a report from Salon's Tim Grieve:
Wait, you mean we didn't find any WMD?
From the "Earth to CNN" Department comes this Media Matters report on an otherworldly on-air exchange Thursday between CNN senior national correspondent John Roberts and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.
The subject was sanctions against Iran, and Roberts began by saying that the United States and its allies might not be able to get them through the U.N. Security Council. Fair enough. Then he said that sanctions don't always work. That's fair, too, and it might have been a good place to stop. Roberts kept going. "Don't forget," he said, "Iraq endured 11 years of sanctions, and, you know, we still had to go to war to get rid of what it was that they had."
Blitzer, who knows a thing or two about Iraq, immediately set Roberts straight, reminding him that the U.S. war against Iraq didn't, in fact "get rid of what it was that they had" because, as it turns out, they didn't have anything at all.
No, wait. That's not what Blitzer actually said.
What Blitzer actually said was, "Good point, John. Thank you very much."