So Angry at CNN

(note: this post is being originally written at about 9am today, but thanks to the SurfControl on WVU computers, even computers in the resident break room, I can't access my blog.)

CNN is covering the various 9/11 memorials happening today in NY, Washington and elsewhere. As always, CNN has a crawl at the bottom of the screen, where they usually go through whatever news stories can be summed up in one sentence. Right now, during the reading of names of those who died at the WTC, they are summarizing the total number of American and coalition deaths in Afghanistan, which is legitimate as that war was/is directly tied to 9/11. But they are also summarizing death totals for Iraq. Why are they bringing that up today? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? They're implicitly acknowledging the often- and widely-discredited Republican position that 9/11 and Iraq should be linked.

Way to be independent, CNN.

While we're on the subject of 9/11 and Iraq, within hours of the attack, according to The New York Times, McCain did a series TV and radio interviews in which he advocated spreading our response beyond Afghanistan, including to Iran, Iraq and Syria. In early October 2001, he stated on CNN "Very obviously Iraq is the first country." And very early in 2002, he stood on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and told the sailors "Next up, Baghdad."

I only recently became aware of these statements, so (not to be immodest), I'd imagine some of y'all hadn't heard them either. And I'm sure most voters don't know that McCain was one of the earliest and most vocal advocates of the Iraq war. I wonder what it would do to his poll numbers if they were to find out.