“Technical Difficulty” or Censorship?As Iowans were casting their ballots in the state’s Jan. 3 caucuses, CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash interviewed an American soldier who had just cast his vote for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Army Cpl. Jesse Thorsen explained that he was excited by Paul’s ideas, including “bringing the soldiers home.” When Bash stated that “some Republicans out there have been saying that Ron Paul will be very dangerous for this country” for that very reason, the 28-year-old soldier replied that he didn’t think “nitpicking wars with other countries” was necessarily a good idea. When Thorsen began to get specific, the audio suddenly starting breaking up. Viewers heard “Iran” and “Israel is more than capable”—before Thorsen’s words vanished from the airwaves altogether. Watch the video on our Web site, www.wrmea.com. The mainstream American media have made a concerted effort to ignore or dismiss Paul’s foreign policy platform, which includes an end to U.S. foreign aid, including (gasp!) to Israel. (Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY], explicitly stated that in an earlier interview with Blitzer.) A look at the background of Blitzer and Bash might provide a useful context. Blitzer is a former employee of AIPAC, Israel’s behemoth Washington, DC lobby (see former Sen. James Abourezk’s “Wolf Blitzer, AIPAC, and the Saudi Peace Initiative” in the July 2007 Washington Report, p. 16, also posted on our Web site). The CNN anchor also is the author of Territory of Lies: The Exclusive Story of Jonathan Jay Pollard: The American Who Spied on His Country for Israel and How He Was Betrayed (the title seeming to imply that it was Pollard, rather than his native country, who was betrayed). Senior congressional correspondent Bash joined CNN as Dana Schwartz, her maiden name. Her father, Stu Schwartz, is a senior broadcast producer at ABC News and her mother, Frances Weinman Schwartz, is, according to Wikipedia, “an educator in Jewish studies and author of the book, Passage to Pesach, and co-author with Rabbi Eugene Borowitz of two books, Jewish Moral Virtues and A Touch of the Sacred.” In 1998 the CNN correspondent married her first husband, Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to Leon Panetta in his capacities as both defense secretary and former CIA chief. The son of the chief rabbi of the Arlington Fairfax (VA) Jewish Congregation, Bash was chief minority council to the House Intelligence Committee when the pro-Israel Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) was its top Democrat prior to the 2006 elections. The Bashes divorced in 2007. The following year Dana Bash married fellow CNN congressional correspondent John King, who converted to Judaism prior to their marriage.
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