Saturday, August 21 2004
DEVASTATING AD: The second swift boat ad is devastating to the Kerry campaign and Kerry's opponents are very smart to move the attack from what Kerry did or didn't do in Vietnam, but to his involvement in the radical antiwar movement when he returned home.

Like I said in my post yesterday, it is Kerry's antiwar actions upon returning from Vietnam where the Democrats are supremely vulnerable, and this ad scores a direct hit.

TOM OLIPHANT IN DENIAL: The Left is enraged that it no longer has total control over what is, or is not, covered in the mainstream media. On the Newshour with Jim Lehrer the Boston Globe's Tom Oliphant tried to snottily delegitimize the entire Kerry/Swift Boat story with this observation:

The credibility problem, which is what keeps this thing in the tabloids primarily and on cable television where there are different standards.

What's hilarious about this statement, is Oliphant is on PBS with Jim Lehrer (about as 180 degrees from tabloid as you can get) when he tries to dismiss this as a story fit only for right-wing hack radio and super market tabloids.

Later on in the interview while trying to fend off the charges from Unfit to Command's John O'Neill, he tries again to suggest that the story is relegated only to the tabloids.

But the standard of clear and convincing evidence-- and it's easy when you leave out the exculpatory stuff-- is what keeps this story in the tabloids because it does not meet basic standards.

Lehrer quickly steps in and brings Oliphant back to reality:

But of course it's no longer in the tabloids because Sen. Kerry brought it up himself. That's why we're talking about it tonight.

And of course you would have to be on Mars to be a political report and think that this story is relegated to the tabloids. Oliphant and his friends in the Kerry campaign may wish this story were relegated only to the supermarket tabloids. However, unfortunately for the Democrats the media playing field is much more difficult to control with the Internet, FOX News and a booming talk radio industry. Twenty years ago this story probably could have been completely buried by the mainstream press and left to the tabloids.

The irony here is even though there was a powerful case that this was a story that deserved, at least, as much coverage as the Bush National Guard ruckus, had the Kerry campaign just toughed it out one more week, he might have been able to skate by without the big-line media picking it up in any real way.

Kerry's attack on Thursday however, makes that a moot point, and the Kerry campaign will have to foster a backlash against President Bush and Republicans if they hope to have any chance of neutralizing this issue.

OLIPHANT'S HIGH JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS: Glenn Reynolds reminds us:

Oliphant's high journalistic standards probably should have led him to disclose that his daughter works for the Kerry/Edwards campaign. Hmm. Maybe -- though in the world of journalism, they think such connections are assumed, and thus aren't regarded as requiring disclosure.

J. McIntyre 2:53 pm Link | Email | Send to a Friend