The Washington Post or the Bush White House ? Same difference for John F. Harris


Asked about "the Post", Harris responds as if he had been asked about the Bush White House. Remember John, the Post is the one that pays your salary, you know, the one your supposed to work for. I mean officially of course.

Dudley, Tex.: Reading The Post one gets the impression that being against the Iraq war and thinking Bush lied to get us in there is an outside the mainstream point of view. But a majority of Americans answer yes to both (and a majority of Americans before the war thought we should go in only with U.N. support). When will your coverage treat that like a legitimate viewpoint, not a crank viewpoint?

John F. Harris: By no means do I think that is a crank viewpoint.

The Washington Post poll, like most national polls, shows that a very strong majority of Americans think the Iraq war was a mistake. The numbers are high, though not as high, on the question of whether Bush deliberately distorted information in making the case for war.

I would doubt that anyone at the Bush White House would honestly say this is a crank view. The fact that they know these attitudes are pervasive is amon the biggest political challenges the president faces right now. That's why he's been making a series of speeches trying to bolster his support.

Peter Baker wrote a very good and clear-eyed analysis on this in today's paper.

I'd call that a Kinsleyian gaffe. Harris revealed that he see's his job as refuting criticisms of "the Bush White House"