CNN's idea of full disclosure

CNN this morning allowed Jamie Rubin to attack President Bush and Senator McCain in response to Bush's speech before the Knesset yesterday. According to Rubin, "There's no more gruesome place for the president to suggest that other Americans, other Democrats are somehow appeasers because they want to sit down at the negotiating table with Iran, especially when, let's face it, his own secretary of defense has said we should negotiate with Iran. Many, many Republican officials have said we should negotiate with Iran. All of Bush's silent treatment of Iran and Syria has gotten us nowhere."

Of course, Bush never referred to Democrats in his speech. In fact, the U.S. senator Bush did mention was a member of his own party. In addition, Rubin is being disingenuous when he says Bush's "own secretary of defense has said we should negotiate with Iran." The difference is that Obama has clearly said that he himself would meet with Iran's leaders WITHOUT PRECONDITIONS.

CNN correspondent Kyra Phillips informed viewers that Rubin was a "foreign policy adviser in the Clinton administration. For full disclosure I want to get that in. But for the campaign, excuse me, Clinton campaign." What she did not disclose it that Rubin is married to CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour was on CNN shortly before Rubin to discuss Bush's speech before the Knesset. Amanpour employed the same spin that her husband did: "Well, the reaction has been quite stunned because this is quite a harsh thing for an American president to level at a fellow American right in the parliament of those people who survived Hitler's atrocities, is now comparing a fellow American's potential policies to appeasing Hitleresque kind of tendencies."

This looks as if the Rubins decided in advance to carry the Democrats water, first with Amanpour taking up the Democrats' spin as a journalist. Knowing that she could only carry the water so far in that role, hubby took over with the more incendiary and partisan charges. And, of course, CNN never once disclosed the fact that the two are husband and wife.