Hillary: Experienced? Not Even Informed!

Hillary Clinton has made the campaign’s focal point as her “experience.”

But she doesn’t seem to see facts as important.

Yesterday I noted Mike Huckabee’s excuse for not being aware of the Iran NIE report.

Hillary Clinton is under the impression that President Musharraf is running unopposed for reelection in Pakistan. In fact, Musharraf was reelected on October 6. The upcoming elections are for parliamentary seats.

“If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow,” she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (.pdf) Dec. 28. Two days later, she told ABC’s George Stephanopolous “[Musharraf] could be the only person on the ballot. I don’t think that’s a real election.”

A spokesman for Clinton, Howard Wolfson (one of the most obnoxious public spokesmen ever), said Clinton was referring to Musharraf’s party, not the president himself. However, Hot Air says that “she gets nearly everything about the Pakistani political situation and upcoming elections wrong.” Check his explanation.

Huckabee Compares NIE Report to ‘Britney News’

In an interview yesterday with the Iowa Quad City Times, GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee defended his ignorance of the Iran NIE report release when asked about it on the campaign trail:

“The point I’m trying to make is that, on the campaign trail, nobody’s going to be able, if they’ve been campaigning as hard as we have been, to keep up with every single thing, from what happened to Britney last night to who won ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ ”

Huckabee said that the NIE report question was “an ambush question.”

“The whole perception was based on an ambush question on the NIE report. From there, it was like, ‘Wow.’ That was released at 10 o’clock in the morning. At 5:30 in the afternoon, somebody says, ‘Have you read the report?’ Maybe I should’ve said, ‘Have you read the report?’ President Bush didn’t read it for four years; I don’t know why I should read it in four hours.”

Huckabee had not been criticized for failing to read the report. He was criticized for not even being aware of the most important news story of that day.

CNN a Casualty of Iran NIE

Quite tragic.

CNN was ready to help lead the march to attack Iran with its special “We Were Warned – Iran Goes Nuclear.” The two-hour show was to air December 12.

Rather than deal with facts, the show was set in a future where Iran has become a nuclear threat. That special was “based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions,” said CNN veep-senior exec producer Mark Nelson, noting that the surprising NIE report “changed everything.” In its place, CNN will this weekend air two Campbell Brown-hosted specials on the Iran situation and its history. Portions of “We Were Warned” correspondent Frank Sesno’s original reporting will be incorporated into those hours, which air Saturday and Sunday.

I am sure CNN will recover and find some other way to help start a war.

US State Dept: Shi’ite-Led Govt Larger Threat than al-Qaeda

The November 21 Iraq Weekly Status Report, published by the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs of the US Department of State:

Senior military commanders now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaida terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias. Several U.S. military officials have expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but “it’s unclear how long that window is going to be open.”