The White House launched a campaign this week to blame the media for their troubles, especially the war in Iraq. This new strategy may backfire on them.

Case in point is CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who spent the run-up to the war in Iraq blandly repeating GOP talking points and rarely, if ever, asking probing questions about the reasons for war the administration provided, all of which have proved to be false.

Two interviews conducted by Blitzer this week seem to show that his loyalty to the Bush cause may be getting shaky:

Bad Wolf

On Tuesday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Helen Thomas, an old colleague of his from the White House press corps, about her “tough questioning” of President Bush earlier that day regarding the reasons he took the country to war in Iraq.

In the interview, Blizter zeroed in on Thomas’ partisanship:

BLITZER: You did say in January of 2003, you said — you said, “This is the worst president ever. He is the worst president in all of American history.”

THOMAS: I never said that on the record, but it certainly got out.

At the end of the segment, Thomas turned the tables and reminded Blitzer that during the Lewinsky scandal that he had asked President Clinton if he thought he should resign the presidency over his affair:

BLITZER: We sat in those briefings for a long time together. Helen, I hope you’re around…

THOMAS: You ask very tough questions.

BLITZER: Well, I’m trying to do the best I can, like you.

THOMAS: You asked President Clinton why he wouldn’t resign.

BLITZER: I asked him some tough questions, but that’s another time. And this is another story right now.

So Helen’s “tough questioning” of Bush about his implausible reasons for taking the country to war were inappropriate, but Blitzer’s “tough question” about Clinton’s extramarital affair was perfectly in scale with the seriousness of the matter?

Good Wolf

In an interview Wednesday with former Senator Bob Dole, Blitzer actually interrupted the former majority leader as he rolled through his now three-year-old GOP talking points about Iraq and blithely attempted to elide 9/11 and Saddam:

BLITZER: Here’s a very tough statement your old friend Ted Kennedy put out the other day… “On this third anniversary, it is clearer than ever that Iraq was a war we never should have fought. The administration has been dangerously incompetent, and its Iraq policy is not worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.”

More than 2,300, as you know, Senator, men and women have died, U.S. troops have died, thousands of others have been injured. Those are very strong words from Kennedy.

DOLE: Well, what he didn’t say, that there were over 3,000 killed on 9/11, and maybe Ted, like — a friend of mine, like most people have forgotten, you know, really why we — partly why we’re there. And another reason we’re there is …

BLITZER: All right. Let me interrupt you, Senator. Let me interrupt you. But everybody now agrees that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

DOLE: Yes, but I think — I’m not sure everybody agrees, but everybody also — most everybody agrees that having Saddam Hussein gone is a good thing. But, anyway, I can’t recall a statement Senator Kennedy has put out this year praising President Bush. I don’t think you can find one.

He was very critical during the recent judgeship with Judge Alito. Senator Kennedy is a very hard-working senator from Massachusetts, but he’s a strong, liberal Democrat who criticizes the president almost daily. He and Chuck Schumer are tied for first place.

BLITZER: As long as you can clarify the one point. Are you suggesting, Senator — I don’t think you are, but I just want our viewers to be clear — that Saddam Hussein did have something to do with 9/11?

DOLE: Well, I’m not, you know — I’m a skeptic. I still think when it’s all said and done, we’re going to find some trace of some weapons that he’s either moved or destroyed. And, you know, I may be the only one in the country who believes, that but I really believe there could have been something there.

But the point is, the American people are concerned. There have been a lot of American casualties. Everyone is important, all of us. But I think we have — you know, we’re not going to leave as President Bush indicated.

We were — we’re going to stay probably beyond his presidency. I remember when president Clinton sent troops to Bosnia for one year, there’s still some in Bosnia all these years later and it’s cost some $40 billion. So you don’t want to put a deadline.

BLITZER: But on this 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, I just want to be clear. You don’t believe that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 as opposed to WMDs?

DOLE: No.

BLITZER: All right. I just want to be clear on that.