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Thursday, September 16, 2004
SKB is in a bad mood lately because of all the distractions in the presidential campaign that are leading the public discussion away from the important issues of the day. For more, go read here.
Debating the issues about which Bubba speaks is an exercise for another day. I would like though to address the question about why the public discourse seems to be about things other than real policy. The Dan Rather memo fiasco surfaced precisely because an overzealous news agency decided that an unsubstantiated story destructive to the President was more important than verification of the facts. Media credibility in any age, but especially during an election year, is an important story. Don't blame the blogosphere or the right wing for this one. Blame the poor excuse for a news bureau over at CBS.
Before that, we had the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Why did take such prominence in the news? Well, it certainly wasn't because the big media outlets deemed it newsworthy. It rose to the top of the public awareness precisely because of this: John Kerry made Vietnam his singlemost important qualification for the presidency. As such, matters of policy haven't been Mr. Kerry's message, at least until he figured out that his Vietnam mantra wasn't getting him enough mileage. Had Mr. Kerry told the public why his policies were better than President Bush's instead of arguing that his heroism in Vietnam made him a more qualified commander in chief, we would likely be focusing more on the issues that Bubba cites.
Labels: Archives_2004
.: posted by
Dave
8:27 PM
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