Hugh Hewitt Interviews CNN's Ed Henry

Hugh Hewitt did a great job conducting a simultaneously hilarious and infuriating interview yesterday afternoon with CNN's Congressional correspondent, Ed Henry. Henry's refusal to answer certain questions was probably as illuminating as if he'd actually given direct answers, and the answers Henry gave showed how ill-informed he was and is about a major subject on his beat, the Alito confirmation hearings.

For instance, Henry only vaguely seemed to know about the contradictions regarding Joe Biden's statements on Princeton, and he never ran a story about it. Henry had no idea that the Prospect article that Senator Kennedy read into the record, as though it were a serious article, had actually been a parody; Henry had never bothered to read the article himself: "I haven't done a segment, because I haven't seen that article." Likewise, Henry hadn't done any homework over the course of the week and read up on some of the significant cases being debated at the hearings. Mr. Henry seems not to be aquainted with the Internet, where all of these issues could be easily researched, or with the concept of being fully informed on a subject before he goes in front of the camera.

It was also interesting that while Henry was completely uninformed on any rebuttal to the Democrats' point of view, when it came to Judge Alito's non-involvement with Concerned Alumni of Princeton, Henry felt compelled to mention to Hewitt: "...there may be other documents we haven't seen." In other words, it's not enough that the documents produced contained absolutely nothing about Judge Alito -- Henry has to hold the door open for a future negative possibility. It seems that the weight to "prove" something to Mr. Henry lies with conservatives, not liberals.

As Hugh points out, Henry seems to feel his job was only to unquestioningly give a play-by-play on what happened at the hearings, without digging further for the truth. Frankly, just about anyone of moderate talent could give a play-by-play or recap without providing context or additional information. Which begs the question: Why should viewers bother to watch Henry's coverage on CNN when they can see what happens for themselves on C-Span?

Radio Blogger has the complete transcript.