Glenn Reynolds on David Shuster's "cheap shot."

Totally predictable. (updated below) (updated again)

OOPS: David Shuster's cheap shot backfires. Will an apology be forthcoming?

UPDATE: An apology: Follow the link for details and video. It's a pretty grudging apology, though, leaving out the cheap-shot angle. Would Shuster have asked Hillary that question?

To review, Shuster asked if a Republican Congresswoman -- who appeared on the program solely to engage in political attacks over the completely inconsequential MoveOn phony outrage -- could name the last KIA in Iraq from her district. Should've been an easy question for her.

She couldn't answer the question, to her shame.

How is that in any way "cheap"? Does Putz think the names of the troops killed in Iraq from her district is trivial information, which the Congresswoman can't be expected to know? And how in any way does Shuster getting the name wrong mean that his question "backfired"?

Shuster made his point: the Congresswoman's priorities are seriously out of whack.

PS
Here's the latest poll results from her website. She might want to stop talking about MoveOn and start working on how to get our men and women home -- the men and women who are apparently unfamiliar to her.



UPDATE

Flopping Aces pretty much sums up the wingnut attitude. The troops are less important than an ad in a newspaper.

The liberals are crying that the fact is she didn't know the name of the last soldier killed but you know what? Her job isn't to know the name of every soldier killed, its to fight the liberal nimrods who put up traitorous ads in newspapers.

UPDATE 2

Putz:

MORE: A reader asks why it's a cheap shot to ask a member of Congress to name the last casualty from his/her district? That would seem to answer itself. But -- as noted plainly above -- I strongly doubt that Shuster would have asked Hillary that question, even though she voted for the war. It was a trap.

Interestingly, though, it's a trap that, in its nature, underscores how historically low casualties are in this war. You wouldn't have heard that question in World War II, not only because the press would have been ashamed to ask it, but because casualties then were such that nobody could possibly keep track. That it can be asked in this war demonstrates not only the cheap-shot tendencies of a hopelessly partisan press, but also the small scale of the actual warfare.

Well, let's start with the first part. The question does not answer itself, despite what Putz says. The fact that the Congresswoman didn't know the answer to the question says as much about her as it does Shuster.

It speaks to her priorities (memorizing every last wingnut talking point on MoveOn vs. not knowing who's dying in her district for the unpopular war she supports). It speaks to her seriousness. It speaks to her compassion.

Hillary is a red herring. But it was a trap, obviously. A trap that exposed the Congresswoman's unseriousness and callousness. Putz is only ticked off because it worked. Does anyone doubt that if Blackburn had gotten the name right Putz and the wingnutosphere would be dancing in the endzone? Of course they would.

As for the "small scale" of the deaths in Iraq -- that's a pretty disgusting formulation that speaks for itself.