finally, wolf was speechless (poll!)

we were watching "isn't my beard cute" with wolf blitzer today on cnn, and the various guests included jamie rubin, former state department spokesman for the clinton administration, now endorsing general wesley clark.

herr blitzer was trying to stir things up without actually talking about substantive issues, as is his wont, when he asked about michael moore's endorsement of clark.

wolf mentioned that moore insists that awol is in fact a deserter, but gen. clark has not made a statement one way or the other about it.

he asked jamie about this fact.  jamie replied that the general does not consider that an issue to be concerned with, and has not looked into the accusations.

wolf asked jamie directly:  "do you believe it?"

jamie fired back:  "i haven't looked into it either.  have you?"

imagine!  asking a journalist if he has researched the facts about a point he's making!!

wolf, taken aback for a second, could only mumble "i'm asking the questions here."  meaning of course, no, he hasn't done any investigative work into the very issue he's bandying about to try to trip up candidates.

then he muttered a quick "we'll be right back after this."

it was a thing of beauty.

addendum:  david neiwert of orcinus delves further into both clark and moore on awol, including moore's response to peter jennings' similar question during the nh debate, and martin heldt's invaluable website.

cross posted on our own blog and the american street.