To The Delight Of CNN, Chuck Hagel To Keep Missing Plane Story Front And Center

Apparently, Malaysia has a defense minister.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet with Malaysia’s defense minister this week, amid ongoing criticism about how well the search for missing Flight 370 has been conducted and coordinated with other nations.

The defense leaders will come together at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations hosted by Hagel in Honolulu. And a key topic will be how all the countries can better work together during disasters like the missing Malaysian Airlines plane and Typhoon Haiyan that ravaged the Philippines late last year.

“There’s always lessons to be learned,” Hagel said when asked Tuesday about the search for the plane by reporters traveling with him en route to Hawaii. “We’re going to go back, the Malaysians will go back, all the ASEAN nations will go back and walk through this. What could have been done, maybe what should have been done, what needs to be done better. But coordination is a key part of this.”

How much can be gleaned from, “We never had, and still don’t have, any clues…”? I think the Malaysian government probably thinks there is some kind of face saving to be had by pretending to learn so they will be better “next time” but…no.

Meanwhile, I’m kind of worried about what will happen to Wolf Blitzer once when CNN has finally interviewed the last living relative of every passenger on the flight.