CNN WILL SOON BE AS FAIR AND AS BALANCED AS FOX-- AND JUST AS PRO-McCAIN

No differences at all-- not where it matters

I get the feeling that many of the CNN anchors really don't have a political agenda; they're just empty-headed news readers. Not so the network's newest hire. Tony Snow is an unabashed right wing propagandist and GOP partisan who does whatever he can to twist the news in favor of right-wing Republicans. Great goin', CNN. The world certainly needs more of that, right?

So last night Wolf Blintzer sat down for a Q&A with the network's newest GOP plant and he promptly admitted that McCain will say whatever it takes to win the election.

Wolf Blitzer: What do you think about McCain's decision yesterday? He was very forceful in making it clear he did not like the Bush administration's handling of Katrina.

Tony Snow: Of course he also doesn't know a lot about what went on behind the scenes, but you would expect that. You've got somebody who's running for a nomination. The president's popularity ratings are low. He's going to put a distance between himself and the president. Everybody hates what happened in Katrina, including the president. It's an easy critique to make.

Wolf Blitzer: Do you think he'll be doing more distancing of himself on other issues?

Tony Snow: I think he'll do it when it's easy. But on the other hand, there are things, like the war, where he's agreed with the president. I suppose in some sense it would be easy to disagree with the president, but McCain has been pretty firm on that. You look at any person who's getting the nomination and trying to run when you've got an incumbent president, whether it's Al Gore saying I want to be my own man, George Herbert Walker Bush talking about a kinder, gentler America after the Reagan years, you're going to look for a way to distance you're from your predecessor so that you have an independent identity. Right now, Democrats have made it clear they don't have any issue other than the fact they're not George Bush. What McCain wants to be able to do is say, 'neither am I.'

Bush is not just the least popular president in American history, he is the most hated man to have ever lived in the White House-- and we have barely begun to reap what his policies have sewn. I think I just heard someone on CNN muttering something about 20% inflation. And the housing market isn't even close to bottoming out yet. The war in Iraq has accomplished nothing to make us safer; in fact, it has done exactly the opposite. (Let me quote something from Arianna Huffington's new book, Right Is Wrong: "The truth is that, far from making us safer, "an aggressive posture on Iraq has had the opposite effect. In a survey of one hundred top foreign policy experts-- both Republicans and Democrats-- eighty-four said they believed that we're losing the war on terror and eighty-seven thought Iraq has had a negative impact on our efforts to defeat terrorists.") Bush will get most of the blame-- and he deserves it (and much worse)-- but there were no execrable Bush policies, not at home and not abroad, that weren't strongly supported by McCain-- including many cases where McCain has flip-flopped on signature issues, like torture, which he claims to oppose but votes in favor of.

So McCain will have a difficult time-- not with the media, of course, but with people paying attention-- distancing himself from Bush; and distancing himself from McCain. Blintzer asked CNN's GOP plant if Cheney headlining a fat cat fundraiser for McCain in North Carolina is maybe a bit of a giveaway about a McCain election being a third Bush term "Is that going to be smart for McCain to be associated with Dick Cheney?" Would it surprise you to find out that Snow thinks it's just a wonderful idea? "Yeah. I think so. Look, it's not going to be smart if you are trying to get Nancy Pelosi's vote. But if you're trying to make sure you've got the Republican base on your side, absolutely. Dick Cheney is somebody who still really has earned the respect and admiration of a lot of Republicans." Snow is correct, something like 25% of Americans think the Bush Regime is just dandy. Over 75% think its an abomination-- and that number increases every month and should increase much more as the economy really starts feeling the impact of the Bush-Cheney-McCain economic policies. Democrats are ecstatic whenever Bush or Cheney show up at a fundraiser for a Republican-- kind of a nail in the coffin. Anyway, I'm just thrilled that CNN will be offering lots of this kind of incisive commentary all through the election season.