Does this ongoing story hurt Bush in the polls even if it focuses on forgery and possible CBS malpractice? After all, it keeps the subject of Bush and the Guard in the news, which might not help the president. Without the forgery issue the whole story might have disappeared days ago. ... Maybe that's why Rather has seemingly insanely dug in his heels: He knows that by dragging out his and CBS's agony he's also dragging out Bush's agony.
He misses a big point. The Bush team doesn't care if this stays in the news. They don't care because America doesn't care. Only anti-war, left wing baby boomers who themselves avoided the war care, and they aren't voting for Bush anyway. We all learned with Dan Quayle in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Bush in 2000 that avoiding service in Vietnam is not a hot button issue for voters. The longer this dominates the news, the less time Kerry has to mount any kind of effective comeback. Right now, Kerry's day to day campaigning is obscured by the CBS controversy. Normally, I'd say that is good for Kerry, because his poll numbers always seem to rise when he is out of the spotlight. Right now, Kerry being out of the spotlight only allows the momentum Bush earned at the Republican convention to continue to roll.
Kaus does get one other thing right, though. This will be good for CBS's ratings. The MSM will also learn something from this: Naked partisanship is going to be much more profitable than this sneaky partisanship the MSM partakes in now.
1 comment:
I don't think the issue is important to anyone. I think it would have been nada if CBS had not claimed they were evidence to prove what they were saying.
Now that we know that the "evidence" is fraudulent, it makes you wonder what they hoped to accomplish except to try and tarnish Bush's Air Guard reputation. Can they be so stupid that they dont' know no one cares? Bush isn't in agony or even mildly annoyed. The MSM, however, is having a hissy fit because they can't prove something they care about. And now they are self-immolating on the evidence fraud.
Of course, Kerry is getting a pass by bloggers who are no longer analyzing what he is or isn't saying. Upside is, the Dems are not demoralized listening to him.
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