John King on Lou Dobbs

CNN.com - Transcripts

It's rare to hear actual insight or uncommon sense from anyone on cable news. Yesterday John King broke with precedent and policy to offer this:

DOBBS: John, the president effectively dismissing the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq as guesswork. A rather remarkable position for a president to take, is it not?

KING: It was a remarkable public statement. Aides scrambled afterwards to say the president's tone was perhaps a bit harsher than he intended. They're saying that the report is speculative. It says it could be bad, it could be not so bad. They also said this report was done back in June. Many critics of this president would say that the situation on the ground is a lot worse now than it was just a few months ago in June. Those critics also would say, How did the president have so much faith in the CIA when it came to making the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and so little faith in it now, when its recommendations and its assessment runs counter to his own public assessments of what's going on in Iraq?

Nice one John.

DOBBS: Thank you very much, John. John King, our senior White House correspondent.

Thank you indeed.