Our dysfunctional media

From today's S.F. Chronicle, this revealing nugget from Beltway pundit E.J. Dionne:

The Obama campaign is under no illusions about McCain's advantage in the polls as a would-be commander in chief. In the Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week, 72 percent said McCain knew enough about world affairs to be a good president, compared with only 56 percent for Obama. Head to head, McCain was judged by more than 2-1 as the candidate with greater knowledge of the world.

Thanks to our asleep-at-the-wheel press, that fails to bring front-and-centre things like this:

Asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" about the situation in Afghanistan -- where both presidential candidates call for sending more US troops to take on the resurgent Taliban and root out al Qaeda, McCain replied.

"I think it's serious. . . . It's a serious situation, but there's a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border."

Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border; it is the Afghanistan/Pakistan border where intelligence officials believe remnants of al Qaeda are rebuilding.

and this:

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

it seems that many people think that McSame actually knows WTF he's talking about. Granted, some of the news media have covered these colossal bloopers (as evidenced by the links above). But not enough, if people actually think that McSame has any grasp whatsoever of what's going on in the world....