Charles Krauthammer and Bill O'Reilly on the Columbia, Missouri SWAT Raid Video

A couple of years ago, I had a telling IM exchange with an aspiring young conservative pundit. (I like the guy personally, so I'm not going to mention his name.) He had just gone on a cable network and said some things about an issue in the news that were completely wrong. So I sent him some links that showed why he was wrong. He thanked me and replied, "One of the really hard things about being a journalist is going on TV to talk about things you're not really read up on."

Well, no. That's one of the "really hard" things about being a hack. I really loathe this about cable news. They bring in the same personalities to talk what's going on in the news. It doesn't matter if those personalities have the slightest idea what they're talking about. They're on TV not because they have specialized knowledge about a given story, but because they're talented at applying standard partisan talking points to a wide variety of issues. And now, Dick Morris will talk about the Federal Reserve. Joining us to explain what the drug war violence in Mexico means to you, here's Democratic strategist Bob Beckell.  Their job is to tell the portion of the audience that already agrees with them what the audience already thinks it knows. Everyone is stupider for it.

What the hell does Charles Krauthammer know about the drug war? He knows he's in favor of it. That seems to be about it. What does he know about the increasingly militaristic way the drug war is being waged? Judging by this video, absolutely nothing.

As I explained in a column a couple weeks ago, this wasn't a "botched raid." It was a routine raid. The police got the correct house. They found the guy they were after. They arrested him. No one was killed. Most of these raids don't turn up huge stashes of drugs or weapons. Most result in misdemeanor charges. If Krauthammer finds the Missouri SWAT raid video "harrowing and horrible," he ought to find the drug war "harrowing and horrible." Because the images in that video are typical of how we're fighting it.