Foley, That Other War, And The Africa Coverage Concludes (Thursdays' Second Hour)

We kick off the second hour with recapping by Anderson and John of their respective stories and then move into a Brian Todd piece about how one of the former pages came to be identified. ABC redacted the screen name of the page in the instant messages, but apparently they missed one, which was discovered by a blogger. News agencies then picked up on it and used search engines to trace his moniker to his current employment as a staffer to a republican from Oklahoma. So the source was a republican and not an evil democrat like they've been trying to get us to believe. The FBI now wants to interview this former page and I should probably point out that CNN never identified him.

Next we have a Drew Griffin piece that covers the FBI angle. The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) were forwarded the emails and they gave them to the FBI a while ago. However, the FBI claims that their investigation was hampered because CREW redacted the page's information from the emails. CREW founder Melanie Sloane flat out says the FBI is lying and just failed to act. This is interesting. I'd like to see more of this angle. Is there a cover up going on in the FBI too? If so, is it just to cover incompetence or did someone get to them? After the piece we have a taped interview with Joe Klein who believes Hastert will do everything he can to stay on. Klein also believes that to dump this all on the democrats is just "silly and awkward." Amen to that.

Transitioning now to a Barbara Star piece on what's happening in Afghanistan and, well, things are still bad. Getting worse actually. NATO is taking over, but attacks are on the rise and it's noted that this will be won with roads and jobs, not the military. The opium crop is a huge problem and Bill Frist wants to bring the Taliban into the government. Who's the defeatist now, Bill? After the piece we have Nic live, and nice and safe for a change in London. And he's wearing a suit. Just saying. Nic thinks it's conceivable the Taliban could be integrated into the government, but they're fighting the government now so...that might not work out. Nic believes that while winning hearts and minds is part of the solution they are also going to have to seal the border to keep the Pakistan fighters from coming in.

Back to Africa now and a Sanjay piece on the newest generation of lost boys of the Sudan. These boys are learning to cope with what they've been through by drawing pictures. Art therapy if you will. Sanjay then joins us live and Anderson wonders if this might cause the boys to be retraumatized, but Sanjay says the therapy works. After this is a rerun piece of Anderson interviewing the war lord and then we move on to another Sanjay piece that focuses on a refugee camp that has just gone through a cholera outbreak. The disease started with a baby that was brought to the camp and then spread very quickly. Luckily the doctor acted fast to isolate people and the epidemic was contained. And yes, that would be doctor, as in only one guy for 50,000 people. Good Lord. We then get Sanjay live and he informs us there are 70 suspected cases of plague in the area.

On now to an interview with the International Crisis Group's Jason Stearns. He and Anderson discuss the importance of the upcoming election and Jason notes that people protest elections through violence. It seems the rebel groups are just waiting to see how things turn out. Jason also mentions that the US is thinking of decreasing aid to the area due to domestic issues and this would be disasterous for the region. Maybe if we wouldn't have fought a war of choice we'd have the money for these kind of things. Plus, it's not just a moral issue, failed states are breeding grounds for terrorists. After the interview we have a reporter's notebook repeat and we're out.

Screencaps by stormi0611.

Also, I have a special present for regular AC360 Review reader Sharla, who got her blog comment read on the show. Sharla, this cap comes specially made for you by sherynroyce. Go to her blog and show some love.