Media


Wolf Blitzer, a Journalist’s Journalist


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The CNN icon keeps his politics to himself and earns viewers’ respect. BY ALAN COOPER


es, wolf blitzer is his real name. Why bring this up? Because the longtime CNN newsman says he’s


constantly meeting people who don’t believe it’s the name he was born with. Blitzer dates the skepticism back to


the early 1990s when he was covering the first Gulf War and comedians Mike Myers and Dana Carvey famously lampooned his name in a “Wayne’s World” sketch on Saturday Night Live. “It’s so obvious the guy made it up


for the war!” declared Garth (Carvey). The illusion stuck. It’s one of two subjects about him


that he says tops the list of topics people are curious about — more than the wars and political campaigns he’s covered and the world leaders and U.S. presidents he’s interviewed in a career stretching back 30 years. The other subject? His beard. “Ever


since I first went on TV on CNN 22 years ago, it’s been the name and the beard,” he told Newsmax in an inter- view at CNN’s Manhattan newsroom overlooking Central Park. “People come up to me on the street [and ask], ‘What’s your real name?’ Or, ‘I love the beard. How do you trim it?’” Blitzer, whose home base is CNN’s Washington bureau, was in New York to interview Donald Trump for that day’s edition of The Situation Room, his show on CNN (weekdays 4 to 6 p.m. Eastern). We sat down with him


40 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2012


LEADING THE PACK Blitzer moderates the Republican debate in Tampa, Fla., last September.


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