"I Wouldn't Have A Clue, You Know?"

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Michael Ware, Iraq bureau chief for Time Magazine yesterday, via phone–as Ware is currently in Baghdad. Needless to say, there were several troubling comments from Ware; this might be the worst:

HH: Because we talked about this on CNN. Do you think Iraq is better off today, just…than it was under Saddam? Do you think that…

MW: Well, I was never here under Saddam. My period during Saddam’s regime was in the Kurdish North, where with U.S. air cover, they’ve forged their own autonomous sanctuaries. So I never lived under Saddam, and I can only imagine what the horrors were like, and what the restrictions were like. All I can tell you that life here right now is extraordinarily difficult, and there’s a lot of killing going on, and there’s a lot of deprivation going on, and to be able to compare that to something I never saw is a bit difficult for me.

HH: Well, do you think the Russian people were better under Krushchev than they were under Stalin? Neither of us saw Kruschev or Stalin, but both of us…

MW: Yeah, I wouldn’t have a clue, you know?

Henry Luce just rolled over in his grave. But Ware’s comments do explain past Time articles such as these.