The Hypocrisy Of George Rekers, Another Crisis Looming In Haiti, And Anderson Cooper Has REALLY Had Enough Of Your Birther Bullshit

Update 5/11/10: I actually don't have anything to say, other than to apologize for being a crappy blogger. Sorry guys. I'm not even feeling the bullet points right now. Allow me to distract you with adorable pictures of puppies. I'll be back soon.

Hi everyone. I actually hadn't planned on blogging tonight. On Fridays I like to use this time to instead get reacquainted with some of my TeeVee shows via the Hulu. But tonight's broadcast was just so good I figured that I could spare a few minutes to drop a handful of bullet points on you. Yes, that's right, I said the show was good. Very good. Great variety of topics and all of them interesting and informative. Cookies for everyone!

• I do need to start off with one criticism though: I want to kill that "breaking news" graphic. I want to kill it with fire.

• Anderson Cooper's pronunciation of "robot" (robutt) is simply too adorable for me to not mention. Sorry Anderson, your speech impediments amuse me greatly and I have no plans of ceasing my gentle mocking any time soon. Know that I do it with love.

• So. Many. Animated. Demonstrations.

• These charges against Transocean sound like they could turn into a big story. Definitely something that needs further investigation.

• It was good to see 360 covering the George Rekers story. Yeah, the piece didn't go indepth, but frankly I was just happy to see the info get out there. Am I reveling in the situation? Yes, yes I am. Call me a horrible person if you must. Schadenfreude, baby! As Wayne Besen said in Randi Kaye's piece, people like Rekers have "helped create anti-gay attitudes and justified discrimination across the country." People like him are the reason that a few months ago some asshole spray painted the word "fag**t" on the house of someone I care about. And helping to deny gays and lesbians from adopting in Florida? Yeah, this guy deserves everything he's getting right now. I love that the Family Research Council is distancing themselves from him. I guess suddenly Tony's not so chatty. George? George who? You stay classy, guys! Randi's piece is below:

• The segment on Haiti made me so sad. It's going to be horrendous if there's a diphtheria outbreak. Nobody should be dying from that in this day and age. It's mind-boggling that they had to search for 11 hours to try to find the sick teen immunoglobulin. Man, Sean Penn is pissed. He has every right to be, in my opinion. I know I rail against celeb guests on this blog a lot, but I don't even consider him to be a celebrity regarding this situation. He's the real deal. Interview with Penn and Sanjay Gupta below:

• After wiping the floor with Cecil Ash, Anderson apparently still wasn't done with demolishing birthers. Tonight he interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, though Lakin's attorney, Paul Jensen, did most of the talking. And our anchor did not like that one bit. The result was awesomeness. I love that the train went absolutely careening off the tracks right from the get-go. I was completely cracking up through the whole thing. It's really the only reaction you can have when faced with such enormous stupidity. Even Anderson cracked a frustrated smile at a couple points--probably trying not to bang his head on the desk. Our anchor really brought his A-game. I'm a sucker for a well-researched interviewer who aggressively defends the truth and takes no bullshit. Tonight he was all of that. Even the end was kinda awesome. The attorney was going on and on about, I don't know, something, and in so many words Anderson was just like, "yeah, you're done." Except, you know, politer. Anyway, a summary can't really do the interview justice. You must watch:

• Good piece from Martin Savidge on the situation in Nashville. Hope they continue to follow up.

• I enjoyed the celebration of Wolf Blitzer's 20 years at CNN. Oh Wolfbot, you're really growing on me, aren't you? Jeanne Moos piece below:

• That's it for me. No special bullet point this time. Just kidding! This bullet point contains a secret portal to another dimension. Or candy. Whichever!
  

Missionaries Released, Charlie Crist Labeled A RINO, Taliban Talk, Jean-Bertrand Aristide Profile, And Troll Foot

Hi everyone. Tonight we have Wolf Blitzer holding down the fort for Anderson Cooper. The Silver Fox should know he is not allowed to suddenly be gone in the middle of the week. It's too confusing. Now I'm going to keep thinking it's Friday, and it is sadly not Friday. Anyway, BREAKING NEWS!!! Oh yeah, we got the big graphic and sound effect and everything.

So what's the what? Eight of those ten American missionaries are being released from Haiti. Okay, once again, that is not breaking news. Yes, it's news, but we learned about it hours ago. It's not breaking anymore, it's broken. Why does CNN insist on making that graphic irrelevant? But back to that news, we've got David McKenzie at the Port-au-Prince airport where the Americans were just flown out by the military.

Then we go to John Vause for more details, and he basically recaps everything we already know. Plus, we learn that while eight of the missionaries were allowed to leave after promising they'd return if asked, Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter are still in custody because the judge is trying to determine if there was criminal intent. I'm glad the eight got to leave. I hope the other two are held accountable if they were in fact up to something shady, which it kinda sounds like they were.

Transitioning now to a Randi Kaye piece on Charlie Crist and how he's just been slapped with the dreaded RINO label (republican in name only). Long story short? Once again, someone from the Far Right (in this case, Marco Rubio) has come out of nowhere to leave a moderate Republican shaking in their boots. Both men are battling it out for Florida's senate seat.

Rubio is dazzling the tea party set with his Real American upbringing and his ability to speak in slogans. But don't be fooled. While I'm sure he's hoping to paint himself as a young-in coming to shakeup the system, in reality he's grabbing points by bashing the stimulus, all the while admitting he would have taken the money as well. Ah, hypocrisy. Yep, he's a Republican.

Now, to make your eyes bleed, we have the Wolfbot discussing this stuff with John Avlon. Ugh. At some point the election is going to heat up enough that I'll be forced to pay attention to segments like this one so I can counteract all the BS, but thank God that day is not today. I actually flipped over to MSNBC to see what Keith had going on. Gearing up for a special comment. How original. Le sigh.

On now to David Gergen giving us some of his insider-y insiderness related to what's going on with the fight against the Taliban. Turns out? The administration is rather optimistic. Okay, I don't want to dismiss the Gerg's perspective, but how do we know he's not being manipulated to tell us what the administration wants us to hear? Doesn't CNN have boots on the ground in the region to give us more of an independent perspective? At least to accompany what the Gerg is saying? Can we get a little Michael Ware up in here, yo?

Next up, we have a Randi Kaye piece that explores Jean-Bertrand Aristide's role in turning Haiti into what it is today. He was the first democratically-elected president and had a lot of nice dreams for the country, but critics say he stole money and armed street thugs to battle political opponents. Aristide's lawyer claims the charges are all just a disinformation campaign.

Due to epic laziness tonight, that's as in-depth as I'm going with this piece. It was pretty thorough, though I would quibble that there should have been more elaboration regarding the 2004 coup. This is what Randi's voice over says: "President George W. Bush's administration supplied the plane to hustle Aristide out of his country in the middle of the night. He's been living in exile and teaching in South Africa ever since." Aristide actually accused the U.S. of being behind his ousting, a charge the U.S. denied.

Tom Foreman has a piece on Amy Bishop, but I never really followed this story closely in the first place, so pass.

Then we're on to John Zarrella staking out the Miami airport, waiting for the missionaries. Duude. I guess this is going to be, like, a thing now. I should have realized this before. I mean, is there anyone out there who really needs to see or hear from these people as soon as they step off the plane? I'm sure we can all wait for the big Larry King interview (oh, you know it's coming!). But this is the cable news game...and why so many people hate it.

The "shot" tonight is troll foot! This probably requires a little bit of explanation, huh? Apparently, Danny DeVito has been taking pictures of his bare foot all over the place, like it's a friggin' traveling gnome. Remember how I said Blitzer was holding down the fort for our anchor? Well, epic fail! Yes, that would be the Silver Fox's office, obviously unguarded by the Wolfbot.

"This is the kind of thing that goes on when you're away," says our guest anchor to the absent Anderson, who is no doubt currently grimacing in horror at the toes perilously close to his keyboard. Or not. Didn't they do a report years back where they found out that Anderson's office was crazy disgusting when it comes to germs? Oh, also? DeVito did his anchor desk too. Strangely enough, all this just makes me want to watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

You've might have already guessed, but I found the show tonight to be just meh. I'll admit, I was fairly bored. Maybe it was partly me. I really hope they're not going to go crazy with this missionary thing now, especially when it seems to be in place of other Haiti news. Isn't that exactly what Anderson spoke out against? Obviously we all want the facts reported, but no more staking out airports, mmkay? That'll do it.

Americans Accused Of Child Trafficking In Haiti, Obama's Proposed Budget, Update On The Mass Graves In Haiti, And Steve Perry Interviews P. Diddy

Hi everyone. Happy New Week! Anderson Cooper is taking a little well-deserved time off, so it is Wolf Blitzer to the rescue tonight. Recently, the Wolfbot has seen his airtime decreased a bit from his usual million hours per week, so apparently he's going to take it back any way he can, yo! And here we are.

We begin with the odd and disturbing story that 10 American missionaries have been arrested in Haiti on charges of trafficking children into the Dominican Republic. This news leads us into a piece from Karl Penhaul, who is still in Haiti. The Americans claim they thought the children were orphans, but when Karl investigates in the children's home village, he finds that's actually not the case.

He talks with poor parents who say they willingly gave their children to the missionaries after being promised they would receive schooling, food, and toys. Essentially, these parents let go of their children in the hopes that they'd have a better life somewhere else. How sad.

Next up, we go to Dan Simon in Meridian, Idaho, which is the home of Central Valley Baptist Church--the church of the missionaries. Dan speaks live with Pastor Drew Ham and everything seems pretty confused at this point.

Obviously the number one question needing to be answered is whether or not the Americans truly believed the children were orphans. Apparently, at this point they have yet to convince officials. Also? Pastor Ham says Dan's name, like, a zillion times. It's amusing.

From Idaho, Blitzer goes on to interview Georg Willeit of SOS Children's Villages regarding the missionaries' intentions.

Transitioning now to CNN's brand-spanking new anchor, Candy Crowley, talking about Obama's proposed budget. That's right, Ms. Crowley has done got herself a show--John King's old gig on State of the Union to be precise. The ladies are slowly taking over. About time. Watch your back, fellas.

Anyway! So, we got this whole budget thing here, and of course the specifics are framed in terms of 'winners' and 'losers' because, I guess, they must. Who's up. Who's down. Who's ahead. Who's behind. Your beltway media at work. I'm not going to list any of the details myself because none of them made me go, "OMG, really?!" Yay to the increase in pell grants though. Those babies got me through some hard semesters.

New narrative alert! Obama is bankrupting America. (Oh noes!) David Gergen and David Walker discuss. Meh. Yes, the deficit is comically high. But let's not go crazy, mmkay?

Someone named Brooke Baldwin has the "360 Bulletin" tonight. Who dat? Being groomed to replace Erica Hill or just simply subbing? Your guess is as good as mine. But I know how some of you have treated 360 newbies in the past (poor John Roberts). Beee nice. Anybody who makes a My So-Called Life reference is a-okay in my book. (I'm so easily won over.)

On now to a re-airing of Anderson's very disturbing piece on the mass graves. Why? Because they have an update from Joe Johns. And it's actually positive! Well, as positive as an update to a story on mass graves could be. It turns out that Haitian Daniel Rouzier saw our anchor's report and took it upon himself to get two backhoes and a priest to the site. The bodies were then more properly buried, and a bunch of people came out to pray and bless the graves. I hope 360 continues investigating the company and government as to what happened.

Finally tonight, we have Dr. Steve Perry interviewing P. Diddy about connecting with young people in their community. This is one of those segments that seems to come out of nowhere, and you're like, "Well, hello there." And then it feels like it's over before it began. Obviously this is all edited, so it's hard to really make any comment. What I saw was okay, I guess.

I wish Steve would have asked him why everything always has to be about music and fashion and sports and the like (and maybe he did--like I said, edited). Why must celebrities always promote the celebrity lifestyle? Why doesn't P. Diddy make a show about young scientists or something? Yeah, I know, I know. No one would watch. But maybe they would if these people made those kind of careers cool.

The "shot" tonight is a dancing owl. Or perhaps a dancing vulture. I link, you decide.

The show was pretty good. It felt shorter than when they were in Haiti. Hm. Wasting time with teases and whatnot in studio? Maybe it's just me. Anyway! Glad to see Haiti is still getting a big chunk of airtime. That'll do it.

Hey, follow me on Twitter. You know you want to.

Post State Of The Union Punditry And Live From Haiti For Literally About Two Or Three Minutes

Hi everyone. Happy State of the Union Day! Our cup runneth over with pundits tonight, so I actually don't have a huge amount to say. President Obama's speech was very good (and very long--ZOMG!), but talk is cheap. I'm more concerned with what he's going to do. I would have liked to have heard more dedication to health care reform, and while the mention of Don't Ask Don't Tell was very welcome, it was briefer and less forceful than initial reports insinuated.

The Republican response from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was pretty unmemorable, so I'll call it an almost-win for the GOP. No appearance of Kenneth the Page tonight. Say what you want about the party of old white men, they know how to diversify a back drop.

CNN was of course ready and waiting with their army of pundits the minute the festivities ended. Tonight The Best Political Team on Television (TBPTOT) welcomed newbie Erick Erickson of Redstate.com. First of all, who names their kid Erick when your last name is already Erickson? Somewhere a John Johnson would love to weigh in on this. Anyway, second of all? Do. Not. Want. Another conservative. Awesome.

I hope you like polls and focus groups, because CNN had them coming out the wazoo. I don't think a one of them was statistically significant, but I suppose that's neither here nor there at this point. I mean, how do they know what states people are tweeting from? Despite my parade-raining, I actually think the snap polls are one of the best things to happen to politics ever. It used to be that the public's opinion was shaped by the pundits, but now the pundit's opinions are shaped by the public's polling.

Watching this occur in real-time during the 2008 debates was nothing short of hilarious. The debate would end and though it was always pretty clear Obama had won, many of the pundits/analysts/reporters would chatter about how close it was. This wasn't due to a bias toward McCain, but rather a bias toward conflict. No conflict, no story. Then the snap polls would come out declaring Obama the winner and TBPTOT would spin, spin, spin to fit the new narrative. As I said, hilarious.

The only thing to write home about from the bloviators tonight, was the near shouting match that broke out during the discussion of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's little Joe Wilson moment. (No, no one yelled this time, but it seems there was a bit of mouthing.) Alex Castellanos actually tried to argue that the president shouldn't criticize the Supreme Court. Puhlease. Yeah, that did not go over well.

The whole reason I was even watching all this hot air was because it was during 360's hour and we had been promised Haiti coverage. Eventually, Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta did join us, looking like two guys who've spent two-plus weeks in hell (which they kinda have), wondering why they're standing there being asked about the State of the Union address. So, Anderson said a few words on the president's comments regarding Haiti and Sanjay touched on health care reform and...that was that.

Literally they were on air less than five minutes. They probably wouldn't want me to be, but I am annoyed on their behalf. Seriously CNN, you couldn't give the Haiti team the night off? I think most viewers would understand. Then maybe they could have been sleeping (or working on something that would allow them to be sleeping later) instead of hanging around a live shot, waiting for Blitzer to shut up and throw to them. It's not like the SOTU was a surprise. Maybe they wanted the airtime. I dunno. Seemed pretty pointless.

I guess that'll about do it. Most of the fun of a SOTU happens live while people are reacting. Was there any site that didn't live-blog that thing? That's how you learn things, like, Chris Matthews said, "I forgot [Obama] was black for an hour tonight." For serious. No word on whether or not that hour contained a thrill up his leg. Anyway! I myself live-tweeted. As always, you can follow me at @newsjunkie365. Back to more Haiti tomorrow.

Possible Terror Plot Uncovered, More Tea Party Talk, Michelle Obama Takes On Health Care, Teen Traces His Roots, And Blitzer Is No Jeopardy Champion

Hi everybody. Anderson Cooper is once again coming at us from Los Angeles, and we begin with some nice scary terrorism news. An Afghan national living in the U.S. is being questioned by federal authorities regarding a possible terror plot AND he has admitted ties to Al Qaeda. Awesome. From Jeanne Meserve we learn that the guy's name is Najibullah Zazi, but she really doesn't know all that much else.

Peter Bergen then joins the conversation and Anderson says the following: "I have got to say, I am, and I think there's a lot of people who are very skeptical when they hear about these kind of raids or arrests. Oftentimes, kind of on further inspection, it turns out to be just a couple guys sitting around talking, who never had any access to any weaponry or anything." Bingo. I am definitely one of those skeptical "lot of people."

Time and time again we hear about some plot, everyone freaks out, and then later we find out it was just a couple of yahoos who thought they could actually take on a whole army base or something. So while I definitely think this is important for 360 to cover, and though Peter seems to think this one is the real deal, I'm still going to let this thing percolate before I expend any real blogging energy.

Transitioning from one kind of craziness to another kind of craziness. Yeah, we're still talking about the controversy over the protests over health care reform. The POTUS could really use not having to deal with this right now, but deal with it he must. Media blitz! In a Joe Johns piece we get a sum up of our prez talking to the media, broken down by network, which is sort of weird and amusing. On a related note, while we're talking about networks, did you guys see Rick Sanchez taking on the lies of Fox News? Booyah! Now that's what I'm talking about.

Back in the piece, we also learn that Joe Wilson speaks! What does he say? Meh. Nothing that interesting. He claims that if he could do it again he wouldn't. Whatever. For discussion of this, we're joined by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jennifer Palmieri of the Center For American Progress. Honestly, there is nothing of note here, though Tony does manage to bring up Prop 8. Quite the one trick pony, isn't he? Well, if you count abortion too, I guess he's two tricks.

On now to an Erica Hill piece on the Obama administration's latest move in the health care reform debate. Time to deploy the misses! They're hoping she'll be a force to be reckoned with. After all, she brings to the table a 75 percent approval rating among women, personal health care stories, and fantabulous arms! Unlike with Hillary Clinton, Michelle will mostly just be playing the First Lady role in this situation. I wish her good luck.

Next up, we have a Randi Kaye piece on the murder of Annie Le, which is followed by discussion. But I can't take this coverage anymore, so I switched to Jay Leno. Drew Barrymore was on. She drove a car around a track that had a cardboard Ed Begley Jr. It was weird. So...there's that.

Moving on to a cute Soledad O'Brien piece, in which we follow 14-year-old Donovan Rogers on his journey to trace his genealogy. Malaak Compton-Rock (wife of Chris) started this really cool program called Journey for Change, which took Donovan and 29 other Brooklyn kids to Africa, so they could learn to appreciate and take advantage of the opportunities they have. One part of the program is DNA testing.

The idea is to help the kids learn where they come from. When the big reveal finally comes, we learn that Donovan has roots in Sierra Leone. "I'm complete now. I know more about me and where my ancestors come from. And now that I know this, I'm going to take it further and discover more of that culture, because that's who I am," says Donovan. Cool kid. I hope Malaak is able to expand her program in the future. I really liked this piece, and judging by the look on Anderson's face when it was over, he did too. Yeah, I might have aw-ed. Sue me.

For the "shot" tonight, this just in to The Situation Room: Wolf Blitzer, like, really sucks at Jeopardy. That's right, the Wolfbot came face-to-face with one Mr. Alex Trebek and the result was humiliating, crushing defeat. The most winceable part is when he's informed that even though he's in the negative, it's celebrity Jeopardy, so they're going to make an exception and let him keep playing. Man, that had to burn his beard. So, Anderson and Erica Hill are sympathetic to their colleague's public embarrassment, right? Oh hells no! They're loving this.

To be fair, our anchor (who is a Jeopardy champion himself, thank you very much) somewhat has the Wolfbot's back, noting that it's really more about the buzzer than what you know. Uh huh. Right. And if anyone thought they were getting out of here without seeing a little of the Silver Fox's appearance, well, you don't know him that well. "Oh, you have tape. Excellent," says Anderson, as Erica intros. Yeah, because he didn't know that was coming.

Anyhoo! You can check out Anderson's big win here. If you're like me, you will be amused by the combination of overly intense seriousness mixed with that quirky dorkiness we all know and love. Also? "They told me I might be able to come back on this year," says Anderson. That would be really cool. But are there really that many celebs waiting in the wings that Anderson Cooper has to wait and see if he's been picked to come back on? I guess Alex Trebek really is our overlord.

Finally, goodbye to producer Jason Rovou, who is headed to the home of the suspendered-one. Good luck, Jason. I did not know you, but you rock a bee suit like nobody's business. On a related staffer note, don't forget Jack Gray's live-blog on Sunday! Fun will be had.

Live From Afghanistan Day Four And Representative Joseph Wilson Is A Massive Tool

Hi everyone. A slight change-up tonight: Anderson Cooper is coming at us from Marine Forward Operating Base Geronimo. He's also coming at us from THE FUTURE! In Afghanistan, it is currently the morning of September 11th. Eight years. It seems longer. It seems like yesterday. Anyway, Anderson does his whole update, previewing spiel of which we've grown accustomed. Actually, he cuts in and out like that throughout the first half of the show, but your blogger here doesn't feel like getting all detail-y, so our anchor's just going to have to cool his heels for a bit. Catch you later dude.

On to the politics! Ok, I think at this point everybody and their momma knows that South Carolina representative Joseph Wilson decided to play crazy town hall person during Barack Obama's address to Congress. The Republican's outburst of "you lie!" was rightfully met with an immediate "oh no he din't!" among the sane of the nation. In a Joe Johns piece, we get a clip of Wilson's apology. Well, that is, if you define "apology" as something the party leadership made him do.

In explaining the situation, Joe tells us that "President Obama made a debatable claim that illegal immigrants would not be insured in his health care reform plan." Um, debatable? No, not debatable. In fact, easily fact-checked. Wilson was WRONG. In Joe's defense, he later acknowledges this fact while talking to us live, which makes the line in the piece all the more troubling.

Another troubling aspect of this piece is that we're told Wilson lost his cool on C-SPAN when a Democrat claimed the US sold weapons to Iraq, but we're not told whether or not the Democrat was right. He (basically) was. Anyway, while the Republican leadership might have metaphorically sent Wilson to the corner, the crazy base is in full on support mode. They even have t-shirts. No, I'm not kidding. And I fully support the effort. I am always behind anything that makes the demonstrably stupid identifiable by sight alone.

Suddenly, Wolf Blitzer is on my television. Oh, what the hell? See, this is why I call him the Wolfbot. The guy is ALWAYS there. You can't tell me he's not a robot. Anyhoo! He's got himself a panel consisting of Candy Crowley, Roland Martin, and tea bagger--ahem--tea party organizer, Mark Williams. The Wolfbot asks Mark if he agrees with Wilson. Surprise, surprise, he does. According to him, Wilson "absolutely spoke the truth." Then he starts talking about court battles and how illegal immigrants already get covered and Obama can't stop that and blah blah.

So really, this has nothing to do with the bill. This is about being pissed off at the status quo, yet hating Obama, and wanting to destroy anything he proposes. Blitzer then throws this nonsense to Roland, instead of flat out telling Mark he's full of crap, which he is. This is one of CNN's biggest weaknesses. Not everything is a debate with equal sides. WILSON IS WRONG. Why is this so hard?

Pausing this ridiculousness, we're joined by Dana Bash who has the low down on the meeting Obama just had with 17 conservative Democratic senators. They're saying it sounds like Obama is willing to negotiate on the public option. No offense Dana, but please go away because you are making me sad.

Back to our panel, Mark has just been asked if he thinks John McCain is a liar as well, given that he agrees with the POTUS. Predictably, he dodges and changes the subject. What does he change it to? Socialism of course! Good lord. This is pretty much where I stop listening. But there is one more noteworthy exchange. Mark says there is nothing he likes about Obama's plan and Roland asks if that includes the provision to ensure coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

Mark acts like he'll be able to find coverage no matter what, which indicates he doesn't know anything about this subject. "You're not going to find them, Mark. They're not going to cover you," says Roland. To which Mark replies, "Well, there is probably a good reason, because it's a bad risk." "Wow," says Roland. Exactly. I mean, seriously, wow. Probably a self-described Christian too. Roland then asks if he would still feel that way if his wife got sick. Mark tries to dodge and then goes with the lame excuse that in the private sector a company would form to take on high risk cases. Um...when? He realizes this already happens, right? What planet is this man from? I am so done with this.

Transitioning now to an Anderson piece in which he goes out on a joint patrol with the Marines and the Afghan National Army. Assisting the Afghans is rough going for the Marines. First of all, there are a limited number of interpreters (aren't you glad we kicked out all those evil gay linguists?!) and the Afghans, quite frankly, aren't up to Marine-level snuff. They go into villages that they know have Taliban, but the locals will deny it because trust is low.

Although one man they meet does give them info (and CNN thankfully blurs his face). Anderson asks him if he trusts the Marines and he says he does. Hey, I have a question: WHERE IS YOUR HELMET, SILVER FOX?! Ok, I'm better now. It's just that in that clip he was the only one (besides the locals) not wearing one. Later, we see some of the Marines with theirs off too and I don't feel quite as shouty. Also, there's a bit of excitement of the nail-biting variety when someone throws a flare and the Marines have to snap into action. (They find nothing.) Everything is scary in Afghanistan.

Moving on now to a taped discussion with Peter Bergen and Michael Ware regarding why we're even in the country. Many Americans no doubt think it's to hunt down Al Qaeda, but that's not really an issue. Peter notes, however, that the Taliban have adopted a lot of Al Qaeda's technique, IEDS being a major one. He seems to subscribe to the theory that if we leave, the Taliban could take over and once again harbor Al Qaeda.

Michael calls that a big assumption and sounds pretty skeptical about the whole premise. So...I still pretty much have no idea why we're there. If it is about fear of Al Qaeda organizing, why Afghanistan? They can set up shop in any unstable country (and have). Are we going to invade all of them? We really want to do Somalia again? And if it's not about Al Qaeda, then what is it about? Ok, so we're nation building. Why that nation and what do we want it to look like when we're done? The debate of Afghanistan has barely begun. Also? We still don't know where the frick Bin Laden is.

Next up, we have a Sanjay Gupta piece on little toddler, Malik, the boy who fell down a cliff and suffered a hematoma. As reported previously, Special Forces choppered him to a military hospital, where he underwent surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. Now he's improved enough to go home, but doing so is not an easy task. He lives in the remote mountains where a helicopter cannot land, so he is taken to a primitive clinic.

From there they will have to carry him home. Yes, carry. Malik's prognosis is good, but the docs are going to need to do some mountain climbing for home visits. It makes me proud that people from the U.S. would do that to provide a little Afghan boy with the health care he needs. It's also kinda ironic given the current debate in this country.

After Sanjay, Anderson is talking to us, but we can't hear him. They subsequently play b-roll and we hear an urgent whispered, "what's going on?" I don't know. What is going on? Sorry, 360, but sometimes you make your technical difficulties amusing.

The "shot" tonight is Anderson talking with some members of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. We hear from Zachary Bennett, Mark Scozer, Kyle Campbell, Shane Brandon, and Isabella the IED dog. Ok, we don't actually hear from her, but you get the drift. Stay safe guys.

The show was pretty good, though I'm sure you can tell I thought the political coverage was a tad lacking. Oh CNN, will you ever learn? Probably not.