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"Scary!" - ? What could CNN's Judy Woodruff be referring too? What's so scary Judy? Could it be that we have a group of people in the White House who have been operating a secretive foreign policy chop shop on the taxpayer dole? Waging a war founded upon conspiracy theories, carefully orchestrated deceptions, false premises, prearranged cost plus contractual cronyism, and outright bald faced lies. Could that be what Judy finds scary? Or perhaps Judy is scared because over 800 Americans have died in Iraq and more than 4000 wounded as a direct result of such deceptions, false premises, conspiracy theories, cronyism, and outright bald faced lies.

More than 4000 missing arms, legs, hands, eyes, feet. Thousands burned, bandaged, brain damaged, beheaded -- spines snapped, folded, spindled and mutilated. And that's not counting the thousands and thousands of Iraqi citizens suffering likewise. Could Judy be afraid of that? Or maybe Judy finds it "scary!" that people such as herself helped ballyhoo, mass market, distribute, fold, lick, and rubber stamp many (if not all) of those hot metal conspiracy theories, false premises, deceptions, and outright bald faced lies with nary a second glance to the questionable veracity and/or consequences of such oily forged mechanics. Could that be what Judy finds "scary!"?

Oh, no! Nothing like that. Don't be ruhdicaliss. What Judy finds so "scary!" (with an exclamation point) is a recent poll cited by CNN senior political analyst, and visiting American Enterprise Institute goodfellow, Bill Schneider. A poll which allegedly indicates that voters, "by better than 2-1", consider John Trial Lawyer Guy Edwards, and his "experience" as such, a "strength" rather than a "weakness".

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking - OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! - How scary is that? Sure ya are. That's what Judy thought too. Upon hearing the terrifying news she immediately exclaimed: "Scary!". Just like that. Just cacked it right up as if she were expurgating a vulgar clam which had failed to behave itself on the path to assimilation.

As a matter of fact I have a transcript snip of the televised exchange right here below: (bold emphasis mine)

SCHNEIDER: Republicans also intend to attack Edwards for being a trial lawyer. How scary is that? Not very, because by better than 2- 1, voters see Edwards experience as a trial lawyer as more of a strength than a weakness -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Scary!

SCHNEIDER: Right.

WOODRUFF: Interesting. OK. Bill Schneider, thanks very much.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

"Scary!" Oh yes. But Judy composed herself immediately - she is, after all, a practiced tragedienne - but for a moment there I was almost convinced she might just spring from her anchor chair and begin running around like a blind clog in a meat locker screeching "the trial lawyers are coming, the trial lawyers are coming!" and then hurl herself down a hole in the floor and scamper off to the safety of some secret CNN panic room impervious to the advances of populist litigators or peasants wielding prosthetic devices.

Anyway, considering all the scary things in the world to be scared of, I thought it a little out of character for the usually sedated hangdogish Judy Woodruff to become aroused to the extent she felt it necessary to declare a favorable public opinion poll of a particular celebrated trial lawyer's career a "scary!" harbinger of some apparently sinister harbinger variety or another.

On the other hand I don't really know what Judy is into personally. For all I know she may be returning home each evening and performing deeply discounted one hour (no waiting) human organ transplants on her kitchen table. Or chaining blind Chinese immigrants to a fleet of giant bench saws. Who the hell knows. I suppose anyone practicing home surgical remedies or running around town selling elixirs of news hokum as cures for everything from pattern baldness to Bolshevism or operating a swelter box crosscutting operation from inside a cinderblock bunker in the back yard might become a little jumpy around the notion of trial lawyers lurking in the harbingers regardless of neighborly affirmations of trial lawyer popularity in general. But, like I said, I dunno what Judy gits herself into once she exits the sparkly tee-vee screen. Could be almost anything I imagine.

She does however appear to be fond of carrying on conversations with "unidentified males" captured on videotape. That stirs the imagination doesn't it? Here's a brief sample from a July, 06 episode of Paula Zahn Now; with Judy Woodruff guest hosting. Roll nasty tape:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST, "JUDY WOODRUFF'S INSIDE POLITICS" (voice- over): Tonight, Republicans target John Edwards.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No foreign policy experience.

WOODRUFF: And he's not John McCain.

That's right Judy, you boob-toob remora. "He's" not John McCain. McCain is that clingfish from Arizona who is currently darting about the country like a fawning kismet rooting for the same B-Team that portrayed him in 2000 as a reconstructed commie stooge sent home to derail the Assentation. Plus, he had that brown baby and that crazy junkie wife that he kept locked up in a trailer on the edge of town! You remember the brown baby and the crazy junkie wife on the edge of town don't you Judy? The one that Kool Aide Karl's thirsty Team-Bush spongers soaped up as suspect family character values and telling reminders of Mr. McCain's, uh, smirk smirk, "foreign policy experience".

John McCain. Yeah. Gimme a break. The man has no sense of decency or self respect whatsoever if all he has to offer at this point is himself as just one more etagere or flash of pasty leg in some twisted goosestep on behalf of the Bush Dynasty's continuing criminal cabaret freak show enterprise. To dance like a cheap whore to that terrible tune after what those BushCo. shit fiddlers put him through in 2000 is pretty weak policy indeed. Foreign or domestic.

John McCain ain't no John Edwards. That's for sure.

UPDATE CNN doens't seem to have an ombudsman (Readers?) The feedback page on "editorial slant" is here.