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This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Saturday, September 25, 2004

"Breaking the News, Then Becoming It"



I said that I would not reference the whole Vietnam issue again, but the latest CBS follies supplies an excuse. This won't be treated like the proverbial wet dream as it has been by certain media sources, including the National Review. They have a multi-part feature on the issue, and milked the story for all its worth. This sadly has not been atypical. Tina Brown provides some excellent commentary:
The New York Times betrayed the passive-aggressive guilt complex that lingers after the Jayson Blair fabrications by playing the CBS story above the fold on Tuesday's front page and the beheading of an American hostage in Baghdad below the fold, at the bottom. A Manhattan news factory screwed up big time -- and it wasn't us! Will Dan lose his job? That's the big news. An American hostage losing his life -- that's the small news.

Some perspective must be put here, and Dan Rather is just the latest person in the press that helped pervert it, though to be fair, various stories reaffirmed the basic truth. The problem is that just because something is out there, it doesn't mean we are focusing on it:
Documents or no documents, everyone knows Bush's dad got him out of Vietnam. Everyone knows he thought he had better, funnier things to do than go to a bunch of boring National Guard drills. (Only a killjoy like John Kerry would spend his carefree youth racking up high-minded demonstrations of courage and conscience, right?) Like O.J. Simpson's infamous "struggle" to squeeze his big hand into the glove, the letter was just a lousy piece of evidence that should never have been produced in court. Now because CBS, like Marcia Clark, screwed up the prosecution, Bush is going to walk.

Or maybe not. There are lies floating around that are a lot bigger than anything CBS or Bush is saying or hiding about what happened thirty-odd years ago in Texas and Alabama. They're about Iraq and they're about now, and Kerry is finally talking about them coherently enough to have a chance of getting some traction.

One would hope so. This latest incident of press error, including the Bushian refusal to admit error even when warning flags were present from the very beginning, is noticeable for its blatant nature. But, oh, how easy it is to miss the point. The true point is that the problem is so much deeper. This was a case of cheating to convict someone you already know is guilty. The administration with a big assist from the press cheated to bring us to war based on a similar philosophy, but one in which the underlining truth of the matter was not only much more important but of more dubious veracity. What is worse? A greedy attempt to snatch a "scoop" or to go to war?

So, we sneer at Dan at our peril, though for those who were too enthusiastic about his story, a bit of egg on their face is probably deserved.*

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* I previously quoted Daily Kos wisely just noting the memoranda might have been real. Others gleefully said Rather surely wouldn't do something as stupid as not truly investigating the story. These people deserve much of the "I told you soes" that they have received. It is often wise to be careful to not to overstep, especially when it is totally unnecessary to do so.