Blogoland

The third-tier talk show host strapped on his kevlar helmet and bravely reported from the front lines of the terror war while interviewing Michael Ware, a Time Baghdad correspondent:

MW: Let's look at it this way. I mean, you're sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.

HH: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.

MW: If anyone has a right...

HH: Michael, one second.

MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that's what...

HH: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.

I am in awe of Mr. Hewitt's bravery. And just a few days ago, we hear, Hugh actually got on a PATH train that went RIGHT THROUGH Ground Zero. Somehow, some way, he survived.

As funny as the above exchange is ("I'm on the front lines, too!") it opens a useful window onto the soul of the Keyboard Kommandos. See, when Hugh Hewitt is ensconced in a cushy office in the Empire State building, he actually imagines himself as a brave soldier on the front lines in the Universal Conflict Against the Evildoers. When he is on the airplane, he is an intelligence officer against fanatical Islamofascists. When he is on the shitter, he is a grunt in a conflagration against the fanatical jihadis who want to subjugate us all under their Islamic caliphate.

God bless the terror hero, Hugh Hewitt. You, sir, are a great American.

UPDATE: I don't want to let this pass by, but Hewitt suggests that Ware, an Australian, is a traitor for reporting behind the lines of the insurgency and strongly hints that he should be "recalled" by Time. Read the entire interview with Ware and more here if you must.

ALSO: Welcome, Eschatonians and many, many, many others.

MUCH LATER: Hewitt responds, sort of. He actually takes aim at CJR Daily (which picked up this post) and attacks with what can only be described as bluster and misdirection:

Transparent idiocy of this sort usually doesn't get a reply from me, but the point I was making to Mr. Ware bears repeating: The front lines of the war change, from NYC, to Bali, to London, to Beslan, to everywhere the jihadists want to strike. Mr. Ware has special knoweldge of the precincts around Iraq, but not of the jihadist threat, and he cannot trump critics of his coverage by arguing he's in harm's way.

Soak that in. See, when Hewitt makes a point of interrupting war correspondent Ware in the exchange excerpted above to state that he is sitting in the Empire State Building, he is really just saying that the "front lines" are everywhere: not just where people are getting blown up on a daily basis. Can't argue with that logic. Erego, if Hewitt were in, say, Southern California, where he normally broadcasts, he might say something enlightening like: "One second! Just one second! I'm broadcasting from a basement in a nondescript building next to a Taco Bell. It is a central front in the War on Terror."

And no one would laugh at that, either.

ALSO: This is one of my all-time favorite Hewitt posts on why reporters were directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of New Orleans residents.

MUCH LATER: Old link to Hewitt interview dead. New link better.