Wanna know why Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is a master at the craft of debating and speaking?

Check out this exchange yesterday on CNN:

CHETRY: No doubt you heard the news today about the Bush administration considering putting Iran’s elite National Guard (sic) on the list of state sponsors of terror.  Is that a good idea, in your opinion?

DURBIN: I want to continue to put the pressure on Iran to let them know that we don’t want the development of nuclear weapons and we certainly don’t want them to continue to send weaponry and bombs into Iraq that endanger our soldiers. I was just in General Odierno’s office last week in Baghdad, and he showed me one of these roadside bombs that they had managed to dismantle, made in Iran, clearly made in Iran, that can penetrate any armor that we can build in the United States. So the putting the pressure on Iran is the right move.

CHETRY: So you think this move as listing them as a state sponsor of terrorism is a good move?

DURBIN: Moving the guard in Iran, the Iran guard to this level, says to everyone, if you want to do business with Iran, do it at your own peril. We don’t want to do business with a terrorist state.

CHETRY: Very good.

Very good, indeed — not for praising the Bush Adminstration for its “good move,” but for seeming to claim it as his own.  Too bad the reporter didn’t press him to answer the question.  Still, would Durbin ever credit Bush?  Probably not.