Blitzer failed to challenge Boehner on false claims about war, ethics

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http://mediamatters.org/items/200611020015

Summary: During an interview with Wolf Blitzer, House Majority Leader John Boehner falsely claimed that the Democratic plan to "pull out the troops" of Iraq is not "what the American people want." In fact, recent polling shows that a majority of Americans favor setting a timetable for withdrawal. In addition, Blitzer did not challenge Boehner's claim that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is responsible for the failures of the House ethics committee.

On the November 1 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, during an interview in which he also stated that critics should not "blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld" because "the generals on the ground are in charge," House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) falsely claimed that the Democratic plan to "pull out the troops" is not "what the American people want." In response, host Wolf Blitzer stated: "Democrats would disagree with you." In fact, recent polling shows that most Americans -- not just Democrats -- favor withdrawing troops from Iraq by wide margins, including a New York Times/CBS News poll released that day indicating that 54 percent of those polled believe the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, compared with 42 percent who believe there should be no timetable. The poll was conducted October 27-31.

Other recent polls also show public support for withdrawal, including a USA Today/Gallup poll (subscription required) that found that 63 percent of respondents would "approve" if Democrats "{s}et a time-table for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq" upon regaining control of Congress. The poll was conducted October 20-22, and had a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points. According to an October 26-27 Newsweek poll, 61 percent of respondents "think the United States should set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces in Iraq," and a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll conducted September 21-October 4 found that 53 percent of respondents favored a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Later in the segment, Blitzer failed to challenge Boehner's claim that "over the last two years, as there were {sic} a need for the {House} ethics committee to operate, it was {House Democratic Leader} Nancy Pelosi {CA} and liberal Democrats who prevented the committee from operating." Boehner was apparently referring to a 2005 letter Pelosi sent to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), which stated that the committee could not proceed with its regular business "until there is an assurance that the Committee's professional staff will continue to be a nonpartisan staff." However, this letter was a response to committee chairman Rep. Doc Hastings's (R-WA) decision to terminate the employment of the committee's staff director and chief counsel John Vargo and hire Hastings's longtime chief of staff, Ed Cassidy, to take Vargo's position on the committee. While ethics committee rules require the staff to be nonpartisan and approved by a majority of the committee, Hastings attempted to circumvent this requirement by citing a separate provision that allows both the chairman and ranking member to appoint one staff member without majority support. Republican culpability for the ethics committee's failure to function has been extensively documented by Media Matters for America.