Schwarzenegger Scolds Shipman for Seeking Firefighting Failures --10/25/2007

1. Schwarzenegger Scolds Shipman for Seeking Firefighting Failures
Reporter Claire Shipman did her level best to get California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to admit that the efforts to combat the state's wild fires were hampered by a lack resources, but in the interview aired on Wednesday's Good Morning America, the Governor scolded her quest for the negative. When Shipman cited a supposed delay in getting airplanes into the battle, Schwarzenegger grabbed hold of her hand, what she described as employing "a heavy weight grip to make his case," as he bluntly chastised her: "Trust me when I tell you, you're looking for a mistake and you won't find it because it's all good news, as much as you maybe hate it, but it's good news." Shipman led into her recitation of failures by wondering about "the comparison to Katrina that everybody's making in the back of their mind." The ABC correspondent attempted to deflate Schwarzenegger's sunny optimism by mentioning unnamed officials in Orange County who asserted the state doesn't have enough resources, including firefighting aircraft. The former actor simply wouldn't go along with this premise of victimization. He firmly retorted: "Anyone that is complaining about the planes, just wants to complain because it's a bunch of nonsense."

2. CBS Blames Warming, But Also Fuel from Putting Out All Fires
A day after NBC blamed the California wild fires on global warming, CBS on Wednesday night cited global warming, but also gave equal emphasis to how years of putting out fires has provided more fuel for them in the form of thick trees and brush. From Escondido, California, anchor Katie Couric asserted the wild fires are "more intense today than ever, and John Blackstone reports, man may be at least partly to blame for that." Blackstone first went to global warming: "Fire ecologist Tom Swetnam has a collection of tree rings that reveals thousands of years of climate history. He told Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes that global warming means a longer fire season." Then, however, Blackstone considered another cause: "A whole lot more fuel to burn, a result of a hundred years of fighting fires" since "putting out almost every fire is not what nature intended, says Richard Minnich, who studies fire history." Minnich explained: "The fire suppression management over the hundred years, in fact, generates more severe fires than what would otherwise occur." Plus, Blackstone noted, the destructive impact of the fires has increased because "the realization it's often good to let fires burn has met a big obstacle: more houses in forest and wild lands."

3. Beck Answers Why Warming Not to Blame for California Fires
Like clock work, much of the mainstream media quickly jumped to blame the California wildfires on global warming, but on CNN's Headline News channel, Glenn Beck offered a different take: Government forest mismanagement and environmental pressure groups forbidding California homeowners from clearing flammable brush around their land. Guests R.J. Smith from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism), offered their analysis. Horner first noted that the facts on the earth's temperature increase do not add up to devastating wildfires in Southern California. Horner talked of a one degree increase "over the past 150 years, most of which occurred before World War II, none of which occurred in the last decade" and "it's not clear that a warmer world would mean a dryer world." Beck inquired into the federal government's mismanagement, exclaiming the same environmentalists that lecture us on global warming "have stopped people in California from clearing brush on their own property."

4. CNN's Cafferty Asks How Trillions for Wars Could Be Better Spent
CNN's Jack Cafferty, in his "Cafferty File" segment on Wednesday's The Situation Room, asked how the $2.4 trillion, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would be the cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade, could be better spent. Apparently, Cafferty, who is a well-known opponent of the Iraq war, also thinks that money being spent in Afghanistan for operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban could also be put to better use. Cafferty's "Question of the Hour" came 11 minutes into the 4pm Eastern hour. He pointed out how the figure "amounts to about $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country" and that it includes "$700 billion in interest, since these wars are all being fought on borrowed money to begin with. And more than 70 percent of this money would go to the war in Iraq." Cafferty also claimed that "as of September 30th, the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $604 billion. That's more than either Korea or Vietnam, and there's no end in sight to this thing."

Schwarzenegger Scolds Shipman for Seeking
Firefighting Failures

Reporter Claire Shipman did her level best to get California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to admit that the efforts to combat the state's wild fires were hampered by a lack resources, but in the interview aired on Wednesday's Good Morning America, the Governor scolded her quest for the negative. When Shipman cited a supposed delay in getting airplanes into the battle, Schwarzenegger grabbed hold of her hand, what she described as employing "a heavy weight grip to make his case," as he bluntly chastised her: "Trust me when I tell you, you're looking for a mistake and you won't find it because it's all good news, as much as you maybe hate it, but it's good news."

Later in the day, Charles Gibson featured the vigorous exchange on World News:

CHARLES GIBSON: There's been a lot of praise for the governmental response to the fires, but there's also been some finger-pointing and blame. Since the crisis began, Governor Schwazenegger has said the state is doing everything it can to protect people and property. But ABC's Claire Shipman caught up with the Governor in San Diego and asked him about critics who say more resources, earlier on, could have saved more homes. The Governor begged to differ.
SHIPMAN: The point he was making, you have to be ready to fly-
SCHWARZENEGGER, GRABBING HOLD OF SHIPMAN'S HAND: Trust me when I tell you, you're looking for a mistake and you won't find it because it's all good news, as much as you maybe hate it, but it's good news.

In the longer segment aired on GMA, as Schwarzenegger and Shipman walked outdoors, she led into her recitation of failures by wondering about "the comparison to Katrina that everybody's making in the back of their mind." The ABC correspondent attempted to deflate Schwarzenegger's sunny optimism by mentioning unnamed officials in Orange County who asserted the state doesn't have enough resources, including firefighting aircraft. The former actor simply wouldn't go along with this premise of victimization. He firmly retorted: "Anyone that is complaining about the planes, just wants to complain because it's a bunch of nonsense." Schwarzenegger then proceeded to point out that the state has 90 planes and only wind has hampered their use. With Shipman undeterred, Schwarzenegger then put to use his "heavy weigh grip."

[This item is adapted from a posting, by Scott Whitlock, posted Wednesday afternoon, with video, on the MRC's blog. The video and audio, rendered by NewsBusters Managing Editor Ken Shepherd, will be added to the posted version of this CyberAlert. But to watch or listen in the meantime, go to: newsbusters.org ]

Shipman also spun President Bush's planned visit on Thursday as a bad thing. She noted how the Governor "remained upbeat" about the trip. Later, somewhat incredulously, the ABC reporter stated that Schwarzenegger "actively encouraged" the visit and that "despite the disruption this presidential visit will cause tomorrow, it will keep the federal government and all of its resources focused on California, ideally hoping to stave off any Katrina-like situations." However, as the September 1, 2005 CyberAlert noted, Good Morning America anchor Diane Sawyer grilled President Bush for not being proactive in terms of dealing with Hurricane Katrina. In addition to several other left-leaning questions, she asked him, "When are you going to go?" See: www.mediaresearch.org

A transcript of the October 24 segment, which aired at 7:07am:

DIANE SAWYER: Of course, the man in charge of the battle against nature is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And ABC's senior national correspondent Claire Shipman talked one-on-one with the governor and has that exclusive interview. Claire?

CLAIRE SHIPMAN: Diane, this is a Governor who is always up, who never betrays a hint of worry. And so, characteristically, even after visiting the front lines of these devastating fires, after coming here to see the evacuees, he was relentlessly insistent that the effort is going well. The spotlight squarely on the governor as he navigates California's biggest crisis on his watch.
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: We have to do everything we can to protect the people and protect the property.
SHIPMAN: Relentlessly delivering the same message around devastating parts of the state.
SCHWARZENEGGER: You should know you're not out there by yourself fighting these fires, that the state is there to help you.
SHIPMAN: We caught up with him for an exclusive one-on-one at the makeshift evacuee camp at the Qualcomm Stadium. His optimistic demeanor going full tilt.
SCHWARZENEGGER: And then when you think about it, I have declared a state of emergency in the seven counties and then we requested it from the federal government and within a day they came through and within a day they came through. So, I mean, that's quick action! Really, I've never seen that before.
SHIPMAN: So, you think the comparison to Katrina that everybody's making in the back of their mind these days is a good one in terms of state and federal.
SCHWARZENEGGER: All you have to do is just look around here and see how happy people are. No one is screaming. No one is complaining about anything.
SHIPMAN: Well, you're saying everybody's working together, but you have heard there have been some complaints from officials. For example, in Orange County who say, 'If we'd only had more resources earlier, more planes, more firefighting resources, we might have been able to head off the fires ravaging Orange County right now.'
SCHWARZENEGGER: Anyone that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain because it's a bunch of nonsense. The fact is that we have all the planes in the world here. We have 90 aircraft here and they can't fly because of the wind situation.
SHIPMAN: At one point, he even employed a heavy weight grip to make his case. The point he was making, you have to be ready to fly-
[Schwarzenegger grips Shipman's hand and starts vigorously shaking it.]
SCHWARZENEGGER: Trust me when I tell you, you're looking for a mistake and you won't find it because it's all good news, as much as you maybe hate it, but it's good news. Trust me, okay?
SHIPMAN: I don't hate it. I'm just listening to Orange County.
SCHWARZENEGGER: No, no. I'm just telling you. No, but you're-
SHIPMAN: When we agreed to move on to another subject, the President's plans to visit California Thursday, the Governor remained upbeat.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Whenever the President shows interest in our fires-
SHIPMAN: You take it-
SCHWARZENEGGER: -and wants to help, you know, the federal government has a lot of help ready for us. We want to utilize that help.
SHIPMAN: So the Governor is positive, but practical. He actively encouraged President Bush to come out here as soon as possible. He knows that despite the disruption this presidential visit will cause tomorrow, it will keep the federal government and all of its resources focused on California, ideally hoping to stave off any Katrina-like situations.

CBS Blames Warming, But Also Fuel from
Putting Out All Fires

A day after NBC blamed the California wild fires on global warming, CBS on Wednesday night cited global warming, but also gave equal emphasis to how years of putting out fires has provided more fuel for them in the form of thick trees and brush. From Escondido, California, anchor Katie Couric asserted the wild fires are "more intense today than ever, and John Blackstone reports, man may be at least partly to blame for that." Blackstone first went to global warming: "Fire ecologist Tom Swetnam has a collection of tree rings that reveals thousands of years of climate history. He told Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes that global warming means a longer fire season."

Then, however, Blackstone considered another cause: "A whole lot more fuel to burn, a result of a hundred years of fighting fires" since "putting out almost every fire is not what nature intended, says Richard Minnich, who studies fire history." Minnich, a professor of earth sciences at the University of California Riverside, explained: "The fire suppression management over the hundred years, in fact, generates more severe fires than what would otherwise occur." Plus, Blackstone noted, the destructive impact of the fires has increased because "the realization it's often good to let fires burn has met a big obstacle: more houses in forest and wild lands." Concluding his piece, Blackstone returned to warming, but didn't blame it alone: "Firefighters are trying to keep up with the megafire threat, a threat that won't go away in a warming world, and a growing West."

UC Riverside's page for Minnich: www.earthscience.ucr.edu

[This item was posted late Wednesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The October 24 CyberAlert item, "NBC Presumes Global Warming to Blame for Wild Fires," recounted:

ABC and CBS stuck Tuesday night with news stories on the impact of the roaring California wild fires, but as houses were still burning NBC Nightly News found it an opportune time to make the case that global warming caused the fires. NBC's sole expert, however, delivered a circular argument in which the lack of scientific proof did not detract at all from his media-shared presumption that anything bad which occurs in the environment can be tied to global warming. After reporter Anne Thompson cautioned scientists say you can't know "after just one season" whether warming is to blame, Princeton professor Michael Oppenheimer, a leading global warming alarmist who, NBC failed to mention, serves as a science adviser to Environmental Defense, reasoned: "The weather we've seen this fall may or may not be due to the global warming trend, but it's certainly a clear picture of what the future is going to look like if we don't act quickly to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases."

Standing in smoldering ruins of a home in San Diego County, anchor Brian Williams introduced the story: "This has been the driest season on record, unusually severe, that's leading some people here to wonder: Are these fires somehow a result of climate change? The UN panel on global warming did warn that we would see more wildfires, so is there a real connection? We've asked our chief environmental affairs correspondent, Anne Thompson. But Thompson is hardly in a position to provide an independent assessment. In August, she filed a story smearing critics of global warming panic as "deniers" and "denier groups"and, the day Al Gore won his Nobel Peace Prize, she endorsed his position on the threat of climate change.

With two uses of the "could" caveat, Thompson asserted in her Tuesday piece: "A new study out this week suggests the impact of climate change could be stronger and sooner than expected. And one of the predicted impacts from climate change could be more wildfires." She soon added: "The wildfires are just one example of this fall's extreme weather: Tornadoes in Michigan, a lack off fall color in the Carolinas, the spectacular foliage muted by drought and warm temperatures....And here in Minnesota's twin cities, they are still awaiting the first official frost."

For the article in full: www.mrc.org

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the October 24 CBS Evening News story:

KATIE COURIC: Back now from the command center where strategy is planned for fighting the biggest of the Southern California wildfires. Officials believe that fire, the Witch Fire, may have been caused by downed power lines. And as we reported earlier, at least one of the fires is believed to be arson. However wildfires start, they're more intense today than ever, and John Blackstone reports man may be at least partly to blame for that.

JOHN BLACKSTONE: With hundreds of thousands of acres burning in Southern California, these are fires on a scale once unknown. We are now in the age of the megafire, a threat that has been building for a century.
ASSEMBLYMAN TODD SPITZER, (R-CA) We always knew this day would come. This is the day of reckoning.
BLACKSTONE: That reckoning isn't only in California. It's throughout the West, where fires have been burning bigger, hotter, and faster.
DIRK KEMPTHORNE, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR: The nature of the fires is changing. In many of the areas, we're approaching 10 years of drought. So the trees are stressed.
BLACKSTONE: A problem that gets worse as the earth gets warmer. Fire ecologist Tom Swetnam has a collection of tree rings that reveals thousands of years of climate history. He told Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes that global warming means a longer fire season.
THOMAS SWETNAM, FIRE ECOLOGIST: The fire season in the last 15 years or so has increased more than two months over the whole western U.S.
BLACKSTONE: Add to that, a whole lot more fuel to burn, a result of a hundred years of fighting fires.
RICHARD MINNICH, FIRE HISTORIAN: Ninety-nine percent of the fires are put out, but there's that one percent that gets away.
BLACKSTONE: But putting out almost every fire is not what nature intended, says Richard Minnich, who studies fire history.
MINNICH: The fire suppression management over the hundred years, in fact, generates more severe fires than what would otherwise occur.
BLACKSTONE: In 1988, Yellowstone National Park went up in a firestorm. Decades of putting out every fire had left the park unnaturally thick with trees and debris, the first megafire. But the realization it's often good to let fires burn has met a big obstacle: more houses in forest and wild lands.
KEMPTHORNE: The idea of just a massive, "let it burn," we don't do that.
BLACKSTONE: It leaves firefighters trying to protect homes surrounded by vegetation ready to explode. This air war is essential in neighborhoods like this where homes are backed right up against a rugged hillside. Firefighters are trying to keep up with the megafire threat, a threat that won't go away in a warming world, and a growing West. John Blackstone, CBS News, Orange County, California.

Beck Answers Why Warming Not to Blame
for California Fires

Like clock work, much of the mainstream media quickly jumped to blame the California wildfires on global warming, but on CNN's Headline News channel, Glenn Beck offered a different take: Government forest mismanagement and environmental pressure groups forbidding California homeowners from clearing flammable brush around their land. Guests R.J. Smith from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism), offered their analysis.

Horner first noted that the facts on the earth's temperature increase do not add up to devastating wildfires in Southern California. Horner talked of a one degree increase "over the past 150 years, most of which occurred before World War II, none of which occurred in the last decade" and "it's not clear that a warmer world would mean a dryer world."

Beck inquired into the federal government's mismanagement, exclaiming the same environmentalists that lecture us on global warming "have stopped people in California from clearing brush on their own property." R.J. Smith elaborated: "Originally in pre-settlement days, a slow-burning fires would move through the forests, burning along the ground, getting rid of duff and pine needles and dead trees and little seedlings and so on that were coming up. But then we stopped that. And so for about 100 years, everything has filled up. The forests are just filled with, with flammable material, with highly-flammable fuels."

Finally, Horner using a public restroom comparison, explained why there is no incentive to take care of property when it is publicly owned: "The worst landlord in the country has the most land."

[This item was adopted from the NewsBusters post by Justin McCarthy: newsbusters.org ]

The transcript from 7:15pm EDT on the October 24 show:

GLENN BECK: Some say that global warming is what's causing the super fires in California, but, you know what, it's time you're told the truth. And I'm just dumb enough to be that guy. We've got that coming up in just a second.

[...]

BECK: For the second consecutive day, wildfires are sweeping through California, especially beach front cities like Malibu and San Diego. And I want to get one thing straight right from the start: loss of life, property, tragic. The people who are fighting these fires, heroes. But I got to tell you, this story just pisses me off. I grew up in the Pacific northwest. Wildfire may be a natural disaster, but you've got to stop kidding yourself, America, and pretending that man isn't partly to blame for making things worse. I remember spending my summers at my grandfather's house at his farm. I can still see him screaming at that old Zenith TV that we had in the living room, yelling about how the mismanagement of our forests is going to get people killed one day. You asked any farmer or anyone that lives closely with the land and they'll tell you, you can't change mother nature. We're the ones screwing things up. Why does this global warming phenomenon only seem to happen in our part of the globe? Why have we, why have we tried for decades to stop the natural cycle of burn and regrowth and most importantly, why do we think that we can continue to believe that man knows best when every bit of evidence tells us it ain't true? Mother nature is tough enough. We don't need to make matters worse with our bad environmental policies.
Chris Horner is the author of Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism and R.J. Smith is an adjunct environmental analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Let me start with you, R.J. How much money do you get from big oil?
R.J. SMITH: I don't think big oil has anything to do with the forest fires.
BECK: Okay.
SMITH: And -- and I'm not sure. I mean -- environmentalists get big oil money themselves, too.
BECK: Look, here's the thing. We're going to talk about things that are politically incorrect. Nobody else is going to say this, and I know all of the bloggers are right now going oh, big oil, big oil, big oil. They're going to deny global warming. I'm not denying global warming. But, Chris, let me ask you this. I keep hearing that this is global warming that's doing this and I keep thinking to myself, how many years have we let the underbrush grow and nobody will do anything? If these super fires are caused by global warming, wouldn't these super fires be happening all around the globe? Are they, or are they not?
CHRIS HORNER: Well, fire happens everywhere, and it is a natural disaster if man's there. Otherwise it's a disaster purely for nature, but again, it is natural. Global warming is not a likely suspect for the following reason: The warming that the alarmists are talking about is one degree Fahrenheit over the past 150 years, most of which occurred before World War II. None of which occurred in the last decade. Okay, we can probably reliably take global warming off the suspect list. Second, it's not clear that a warmer world would be a dryer world. As you know, Glenn, they rely on computer models to scare us. The computer models disagree with each other. The two that the United States used for an Al Gore produced report they left off it said the Red River Valley was going to be a flood plain or a desert. So, you know, prepare for it.
BECK: Okay. So, R.J., let me -- help me out. Because if I hear the -- if I hear global warming one more time, blood's going to shoot out of my eyes.
SMITH No, it has little if anything to do with global warming, Glenn. What happens, I mean, you're right from what you've learned in Washington state. For almost 100 years, the federal government and the firefighting profession has mismanaged our national forests. They were under the assumption that fire was unnatural, that all fires had to be stopped and put out, and we've done that. And fires are a natural part of forest communities. And originally in pre-settlement days, a slow-burning fires would move through the forests, burning along the ground, getting rid of duff and pine needles and dead trees and little seedlings and so on that were coming up. But then we stopped that. And so for about 100 years, everything has filled up. The forests are just filled with, with flammable material, with highly-flammable fuels.
BECK: R.J., true or false, that they actually -- the environmentalists, the same ones that going to tell me it's my fault because I have an SUV, these same damn environmentalists are the ones that have stopped people in California from clearing brush on their own property.
SMITH: Precisely. First, the feds made things bad with 100 years of mismanagement and then starting around 1975, 1980, into there, the greens made things worse by stopping all management. No management. And they said fire was natural and it was natural regulation and let it burn, particularly in the national parks and you saw what happened in Yellowstone. The great experiment. It burned down half the park. That's their big success story, and they love that. I mean, their chief biologist out there was chanting burn, baby, burn, as the fire roared through his study plots. One of the Autobahn Society board members who teaches children for the Autobahn Society said the biggest disaster of the Yellowstone fires was that they did not destroy the town of West Yellowstone, which is the entrance to the park, because it was all ticky tacky and neon cluttered and it should have been reduced to ashes. That's the philosophy of the greens. They don't like people and they don't like people out in the woods.
BECK: Okay. Chris, 65 percent of all land west of Denver owned by the federal government, true or false? And why should that matter?
HORNER: True, and it should matter because we face a situation where the worst landlord in the country has the most land. I've never been to your home, Glen but I'm guessing that your men's room is cleaner than the one that Penn Station. That's a microcosm of the tragedy of the commons. I'm assuming things here.
BECK: No, it is.
HORNER: The fact of the matter is that if everybody owned something, nobody has the property interest to take care of it and that's what happened here, which is why these fires start on publicly-owned lands. They start elsewhere. Greece, as you know, had a tragic fire this year. A government almost fell. It was their hurricane Katrina. It proved not the incompetence of that government, but the incompetence of government. But again, in Greece, most of the forest land is owned by the state. That's where these things traditionally start.

CNN's Cafferty Asks How Trillions for
Wars Could Be Better Spent

CNN's Jack Cafferty, in his "Cafferty File" segment on Wednesday's The Situation Room, asked how the $2.4 trillion, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated would be the cost for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade, could be better spent. Apparently, Cafferty, who is a well-known opponent of the Iraq war, also thinks that money being spent in Afghanistan for operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban could also be put to better use.

Cafferty's "Question of the Hour" came 11 minutes into the 4pm Eastern hour. He pointed out how the figure "amounts to about $8,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country" and that it includes "$700 billion in interest, since these wars are all being fought on borrowed money to begin with. And more than 70 percent of this money would go to the war in Iraq." Cafferty also claimed that "as of September 30th, the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $604 billion. That's more than either Korea or Vietnam, and there's no end in sight to this thing."

The CNN commentator concluded by sarcastically asking: "Hey, it's not like we couldn't use the money at home or anything, right? Let's see what happens when Congress addresses President Bush's latest request for tens of billions of additional dollars to wage war."

[This item is adapted from a Wednesday afternoon posting, by Matthew Balan, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

This was hardly the first time Cafferty has pursued this line of reasoning. The October 23 CyberAlert article, "Cafferty Denounces More Money for Wars But None for Poor Families," recounted:

CNN's Jack Cafferty used one of his Monday "Cafferty File" segments to denounce the Bush administration for opposing the expansion of the S-CHIP program, and now threatening to veto spending for home energy assistance, while pushing more money for Iraq. An exasperated Cafferty: "No money for kids' health insurance, no money to help poor families pay their heating bills, but President Bush wants $190 billion additional for 2008 for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Cafferty contended "thirty million of the poorest Americans will be left in the cold this winter because a government program that's supposed to help pay their heating bills doesn't have enough money" and yet "the Bush administration wants to cut the program's budget. No heat for the poor people. Starting to sound familiar, isn't it? Remember a couple of weeks ago President Bush went into a closed office, shut the door, no reporters, vetoed a health bill to provide health insurance for kids."

For the entire CyberAlert rundown: www.mrc.org

Also check the October 4 CyberAlert, "CNN's Cafferty Laments War Spending, Bush Veto of SCHIP," online at: www.mediaresearch.org

And the August 3 CyberAlert item, "CNN's Cafferty Exploits Bridge Collapse to Stigmatize Iraq War," online at: www.mediaresearch.org

Back to Wednesday, at the end of the October 24 hour, Cafferty read some of the responses to his question, and besides the typical laments and suggestion you might hear from the liberal blogosphere, he included two conservative responses, one from an apparent critic of Cafferty.

CAFFERTY: The question this hour is: The Congressional Budget Office estimates the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost $2.4 trillion through the next decade. So, we asked, how do you think that money can be better spent?
Jeff writes from Maryland: 'I'm convinced the Iraq war was 43's re-election centerpiece, making the 2004 presidential race truly the most expensive political contest in history. He drained the U.S. Treasury, and indebted generations of Americans to come, to ensure he would hold on to the White House. Quite a feat for a National Guard pilot of some distinction, eh?.'
Eric in Michigan: 'Where to begin!? What about higher education? I feel like I'm fighting a war of my own against these student loans I've had to take out.'
Linda in Illinois writes: 'The money cannot be better spent than on and for our freedom. How much is your freedom worth? I would gladly pay three times the $8,000 that is my share. Where do I send the check?'
Jeff in Orlando Florida: 'How about funding full medical coverage for all U.S. citizens, funding Social Security, and with the leftover money, impeach George the almighty and fire the Congress?' Hey, there's an idea.
Joaquin writes: 'Since it's borrowed money, maybe we shouldn't spend it? Why must we burden our children's children with our debt? It's about time this nation understands this war is ruining the financial stability of this country.'
Jack on Long Island writes: 'That amount of money could be used to place solar panels on every home in America. We could become energy independent, and the entire Arab world will have to figure out something to do with their now-worthless black lead.'
And Tom in Maine writes: 'Jack, the money could be better spent by using it to buy out your contract, so we wouldn't have to listen to your endless, biased, anti-Bush droning.' They could buy it out for a lot less than that.

Well, you can't fault Cafferty for having a sense of humor at times.

-- Brent Baker