CNN Joins Many Others Under Obama's Bus

CNN did not distinguish itself this morning. It took a Coast Guard training exercise and turned it into another 9/11 terror attack. The White House was not amused:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs chastised CNN Friday morning for its reporting on a Coast Guard training exercise on ...

... the Potomac River, which suggested a security incident was in progress in the nation's capital.

"Before we report things like this, checking would be good," Gibbs said.

Responding directly to a CNN reporter's question about whether the public should have been notified about a training exercise, Gibbs was harshly sarcastic: "If anybody was unnecessarily alarmed based on erroneous reporting that denoted that shots had been fired, I think everybody is apologetic about that."

When another journalist noted that the Coast Guard was holding a news conference to take questions on the morning's events, Gibbs jabbed: "Hopefully CNN will go."

The president's spokesman also said the White House had not been notified in advance about any Coast Guard training exercise, but dismissed comparisons to the notoriously botched Air Force One flyover of Lower Manhattan earlier this year.

"I tend not to question law enforcement," Gibbs said, explaining the scheduling of the exercise was "a decision that was made by the Coast Guard."

I'm sure the White House is not as mad about CNN's reporting as it is about the spotlight this event will place on another Federal government training exercise gone bad.

The good news is that so few people watch CNN the panic was pretty well contained.