CNN now trying to blame Bush for Libya???

I had the misfortune to be one of the twelve Americans who actually watched Wolff Blitzer in the Situation Room this afternoon. Okay, there were probably thousands of people whose planes had been delayed who were also watching, but I was refering to those who were watching by choice. I was amazed to hear Blitzer do a lengthy segment on how the removal of Libya from the State Department's list of coutries that sponsor terror in 2003 (under Bush of course) was a reason why there were problems today in Libya. Even for CNN, the report made no sense, and that is truly saying something major. Blitzer reported that in 2003, the USA removed Libya from the state sponsors of terror in exchange for Libya giving up its nuclear weapons program and paying reparations to the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. Blitzer said, however, that Libya may have fooled the USA into believing that it had a nuclear weapons program, so Libya really did not give up much. It was comical. Blitzer did not say that Libya had no weapons program, only that it may not have had one. Blitzer, of course, did not try to explain where the fissile material and other items turned over by Libya came from. Maybe it too was imaginery. In any event, CNN then intimated that by taking Libya off the State Department list, it let Gaddafi stay in power until today.

Oh where to begin? A report not based upon facts -- that might be a good place to start. Or maybe I should start with a conclusion that had no logical base -- Libya was on the State Department list for decades before 2003 and Gaddafi was still there.

The truth is that CNN has heard all of the criticism leveled at president Obama and his handling of the revolts in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. Here was a chance to blame some of the problems on George W Bush. My guess is that if this report gets no traction, CNN may discover that in 1804 the USA sent the Marines to Tripoli to defeat the Babary pirates and that the battle over two hundred years ago actually explains why Obama was stuck with the course of action that he followed. Of course, I recognize that such a story would make no sense, but that never stopped Blitzer and CNN before.