Guess who's responsible for CNN's blown "Arrest made" report? Go on, guess...

[WilliamPitt]

Fran Townsend.

Former Homeland Security Adviser to G.W. Bush, who has been one of CNN's talking heads in Boston.

Natch.

[Renew Deal]

1. They gave up their source?

[WilliamPitt]

5. She was standing right there on camera.

[jberryhill]

2. They need this guy

[winter is coming]

3. If they had him, they'd claim he was a suspect.

[hatrack]

6. Or this guy . . .

[JHB]

13. Or this guy...

[CTyankee]

22. ACK! please, no, no mas!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

26. At least we know he'd be well dressed. nt

[Iliyah]

30. LOL

I liked him tho. Baghdad Bob. I don't know if he truly believed in what he was saying but I guess it sounded good enough for those in this county that wanted to believe. I think Rubio is for the GOP party.

I assume Ted Turner is shaking his head at this point. CNN was the first and foremost top of the line when it came to news both domestic and foreign. Now its consider the bottom.

[flamingdem]

37. he was the best nt

[librechik]

4. that female is not reliable....ever

[Supersedeas]

17. WMD Franny--did she ever have any credibility to begin with?

[Chan790]

7. Did they fire her?

I guessed wrong...I figured it was Wolf Blitzer. (Could he have chosen any more ridiculous of a stage name? Perhaps Hypermasculine Express!! (with the exclamation points, naturally))

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. First time I heard that name I thought it was a player name for this...

http://takegame.com/shooter/htm/wolfenstein.htm

[dragonlady]

42. Say what you will about Wolf Blitzer's work, but

that is his real name, not something he made up. I know from genealogy records that Wolf was a popular name among European Jews in the 19th century, and according to Wikipedia it was the name of his grandfather. There is an ancient and strong tradition among European Jews to name babies after deceased family members, and his parents as Holocaust survivors would be especially eager to honor that tradition--his namesake may well have been a victim.

[snooper2]

8. so do you have to re-write your article from scratch now?

LOL

[bigtree]

9. Apparently Fran Townsend "misunderstood"

James Downie ?@jamescdownie 9m

Apparently Fran Townsend "misunderstood" "someone not in custody" as "someone in custody."

[Fuddnik]

19. Yeah, that's the ticket!

[Voice for Peace]

21. Brilliant... "We have someone, not in custody?" or "We have someone in custody?"

or we have not someone in custody, or not, or both?

[closeupready]

25. Well, to be fair, 'not' is a small word; easy to overlook.

So, you have to take that into consideration.

[tblue37]

34. I have had that problem with my students, too, in recent years. Nowadays

they are so distracted (by constantly texting and being in their iPod bubbles most of their day) and have such short attention spans that they cannot seem to pay attention long enough to hear all the words in a sentence.

Sometimes when I want to make sure they don't do a complete reversal like that one, and the situation is one in which innumerable students have made such a reversal in the past, I say whatever I am going to say and then, when I get to the negative element, I emphasize it. For example, "The persona in this poem is not, listen now, NOT, NOT NOT a child. Is he a child? No. He is an adult, a man reminiscing about his childhood, NOT a child!"

I play it for laughs, and they giggle, but really, it isn't funny. It's downright depressing.

[pacalo]

36. It's baffling that cellphones & iPods are allowed in the classroom.

Shouldn't there be a requirement that they be kept in lockers during classes?

We couldn't even chew gum in school!

[tblue37]

38. Oh, they aren't texting and iPoding in my classroom--or

if they do, I catch them at it and correct them for it immediately. It really is an addiction for them, so they tend to do it automatically sometimes and need to be corrected when they do. Seldom do I have a student who does so more than once or twice per semester, but when I do have such a student, I confiscate his phone until the end of the period unless we are using something I have posted online.

But they are texting, etc., in almost every other moment of their lives and have been since grade school, except when watching TV or playing videogames or updating their Facebook page. It shapes their minds, their perception, and their attention span, and that affects how they can listen, look, or just pay attention in general, even when not using those devices to play around.

Nevertheless, I want my students to have their cellphones, tablet computers, or laptops in my classroom, because we use the internet all the time. For example, instead of wasting my department's resources (limited because Repub legislators cut funding for education all the time) to print copies of sample essays, poems, or other material we use in class, I used to ask my students to print off a copy of the day's needed material. But always some forget or just don't bother to, so the teacher has to waste HER ink and paper to bring in a few extra copies. But now we can post the material online so students who don't remember to bring a copy--or who don't want to waste their ink or paper printing a copy--can just access it on their phone or other wireless device.

I always let my students use any edition of our texts that they can buy used and cheap online if they don't want to--or can't afford to--buy the outrageously priced current editions. But some still can't afford the cost, so being able to access needed material online in the classrom can save them a fortune. I keep in my office extra copies of the textbooks (my instructor's editions or cheap used copies I have purchased online) so students who can't afford to buy their own can borrow them when they need to read something in them that they can't access online.

Our young people are going deeply into debt already for college, so I try to save them money where I can, and making as much of our material available for online access as I can is one of my methods for doing so.

Also, sometimes we need certain information in class that they can look up online. In the old days, I would just give them such info in class, but asking them to look it up online in class themselves enhances their interest and their ability to pay attention to the info and to remember it. Most college students are still kids in many ways, so when the teacher asks them to find info online, they usually "compete" to be the first one to call it up and tell the class about what they have found.

So, for many reasons, I want my students to have phones or other wireless devices in class, because we use the internet often. I just don't like the way their constant use of such devices in almost every moment of their lives has shaped their habits of mind, their perception, and their ability to focus and to pay attention in general.

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

39. gosh if I see any of my students

using a phone in class I ask them to leave. They are told to turn off all electronic devices at the beginning of class and the majority of them do, but one or two simple cannot live without looking at their text messages.

[tblue37]

40. Don't you use online material at all in class?

In my post above yours I explain how and why I do. It saves them, the department, and ME a lot of money and trouble to not have to make hundreds of copies of needed pages to use in class!

[pacalo]

45. You certainly have it under control; you embrace the advantages to the classroom

& your students seem to understand & respect the boundaries. I like that you put a lot of thought into understanding them; it shows your dedication to your profession.

And this is soooo true:

It (their dependency on texting) shapes their minds, their perception, and their attention span, and that affects how they can listen, look, or just pay attention in general, even when not using those devices to play around.

[AngryOldDem]

44. That's why you get confirmation **before** you run with such a claim.

Honest to Christ, I learned that in my high school journalism class.

[dgibby]

10. They cited 2 sources.

John King cited a Boston Law Enforcement source and Fran Townsend cited a Fed. Law Enforcement source, both of which turned out to be wrong. CNN now backing off original story, quoting Justice Dept: No arrest made.

Egg meet face!

[JHB]

14. Unfortunatley, paycheck will continue to meet account

Never hits them where it counts, no matter the poor performance.

[TeamPooka]

29. Laughed when they trotted out Anderson Cooper to rationalize the mistake to their veiwers. nt

[maddezmom]

11. Yup

She is an idiot.

[Blue Owl]

12. Make that: Fran. Fucking. Townsend.

n/t

[Oilwellian]

15. Fitting n/t

[Auntie Bush]

16. Could never stand that woman...now I remember why!

[JoePhilly]

18. Just another member of the Bush administration in exile on TV.

[closeupready]

23. there you go. Why am I not surprised.

K&R

[HiPointDem]

24. similar to the jewell case when reno's office leaked the info on jewell. makes me feel very

warm & fuzzy knowing professionals are on the case.

[closeupready]

27. You mean, 'professionals'.

right?

[warrprayer]

28. It's a slam dunk! n/t

[Rex]

31. Of course!

Why should we expect her to become competent over all these years?

[MissNostalgia]

32. I heard on Randi Rhodes...

CNN flashed BREAKING NEWS only to cut to a BMW commercial, if that doesn't sum up our news problem, I don't know what will.

[watoos]

33. Faux News reported the same thing.

[a kennedy]

41. I was switching from channel to channel pretty much all afternoon......

Faux and CNN both said an arrest has been made, NBC and CBS did NOT confirm it.....then for about 3 hours after the reporting of no arrest, faux kept repeating that "it's so easy to pile on with false information when information is coming fast and furious." Ugh....bill hemmer was falling all over faux reporting on the reason why "some news" organizations got it so wrong, i.e. CNN, but he wouldn't admit the faux was right in there saying someone was arrested.

[arely staircase]

35. lol

serves 'em right.

[LeftyChristian]

43. Didn't read the post

I wanted to submit my guess.

Was it Jason Leopold?