Howard Dean was on Late Edition yesterday. BFA has posted the entire transcript. Vintage Howard Dean, but man is Wolf Blitzer a complete lackey apologist for the Bush administration or what? Makes me nauseous, repeatedly, the depths to which our 'mainstream media' has sunk.

DEAN: [...] I think what we do know right now is the president of the United States paid no attention to 9/11 because of his obsession with Iraq, both before 9/11 and after 9/11.

We do know that we've consistently gone after the wrong enemy, which has always been al Qaeda, and that Saddam Hussein now is a diversion. And that the president of the United States has made consistently bad decisions, in many cases based on willful misinterpretation of the intelligence.

BLITZER: I don't think it's fair to say that the president paid no attention to al Qaeda. [J: Nice strawman, Wolfie-poo, but that's not quite what he said...] Richard Clarke said that this [J: What is this 'this' referring to? Clarke was talking about counterterrorism generally, but don't let anything stop you from arguing with Democrat Howard Dean...] was an important issue for the president, but not a critical issue or an urgent matter, as it was, he said, for the former president, Bill Clinton. You don't accept Richard Clarke, who was there for eight months, his assessment?

DEAN: What Richard Clarke's assessment was -- and I watched him because I think his testimony was riveting. What he said was that the president was consistently obsessed with Iraq and consistently demanded that his people who reported to him tell him, whether it was true or not, that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, therefore justifying the invasion of Iraq. When, in fact, we should have been spending our resources and our attention, not to mention sending the soldiers and so forth, to deal with Osama bin Laden.

That did not happen. The United States has been at continued risk because of that. So I think, true, perhaps to say he paid no attention is a little strong. But the fact is that he did everything he could to focus on Iraq, when Iraq in fact was not the problem. And that's jeopardizing the security of the United States of America.

Memo to Wolfie: It's not your job to argue with your interviewees or claim that you "don't think it's fair" to criticize the President. Not to mention that you restated what Dean said to be broader (and thus easier to attack) than it was. Typical. (Minor, in this case, but oh so very typical.) Blitzer is a punk. (And yes, there is a deliberate irony here...)