In an Op-Ed piece entitled “It’s Time to Get Tough,” Robert Kuttner rallies John Kerry’s supporters to the faltering campaign. He says “Five big things are wrong, and each can (belatedly) be fixed.” The piece is addressed to the major components of the Kerry campaign: the candidate himself (or “himselves”? he has taken enough different positions to qualify as plural), his campaign staff, and to the media, which Kuttner feels has not been sufficiently active on Kerry’s behalf:
Hostile Media. The press (with some heroic exceptions) continues to cut Bush and the right-wing smears a lot more slack than they cut Kerry. There is no offsetting left-wing Fox.
It has been raining up and down the East Coast, Florida has had hurricanes lining up at Disneyworld instead of tourists, but it’s nice in Chicago. I wonder what kind of weather they have on Kuttner’s planet?
Well, never mind. The Boston Globe rises to the challenge with a front-page Spotlight Team investigative article on – ready? – George Bush’s National Guard records. Wait, didn’t we cover this in 2000? The Globe has all the answers, including the one to that question:
The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.
Oh. So this has actually been looked at, but we just didn’t pay enough attention at the time. So it’s still news. That must be why NPR decided to cover it again, too.
A Pulitzer Prize for Kitty Kelley? It’s a lock.
We should start a campaign to bombard all the media, Kerry’s campaign and anybody else who can be hassled, demanding the release of (1) Kerry’s complete military record, (2) Teresa’s taxes, and (3) Kerry’s medical records.
If Bush’s National Guard service can be raked and re-raked and raked over again, let’s get some fresh grain for the mill. Let’s see Kerry’s stuff.
Yes – those records should be out. And transparency is good.
Still:
Given the “Texans for Truth” ads came out in the last couple of days and we are seeing leaks of the Kelly book, isn’t it interesting that all the indicators to the right are putting Bush up? Or, perhaps, you can go broke underestimating the public: democracy works because in the long run we’re not all idiots.
But few democrats seem “serious”. The grownups all seem in hiding; someone I once thought was grown up sits with Michael Moore and smugly argues complaints about discrepancies between exit polls and the “truth” are just complaints by a polling company that was off, what, 38 points.
Okay, I used to start and end my day with NPR and thought differently then; being shaken up is a good thing and maybe this is just embarrassment and cynicism talking. And, maybe I need more NPR now and less Fox.) But NPR seems so shoddy, so petty in a world that includes Beslan.
We need two viable parties that have different but valid, serious positions on actions within this universe. Only in an alternate one would a party consistently ignore, for instance, the oil for food scandal and keep repeating that we should have brought France in or ignore in all arguments both the no-fly zones and the UN resolutions.
This silliness is not good for the country as a whole. And divided government would be, I suspect, a better way of reaching sensible compromises. But how can we want anyone in government, right now, who thinks the whole national guard thing is actually an important issue that should be front & center? And what kind of news sources agree?