Tuesday, September 14, 2004

WWI of the Media Wars -- Goldberg

Loved these last three paragraphs:

Anyway, let me make one directly partisan point while I'm at it. Dan Rather considers it outrageous and offensive that anyone would question the judgment that led to this situation. He defends what appear to be very shoddy methods (reading letters over the phone to sources, asking sources not to talk to the press, etc.), as if only a "partisan" or a fool would question them.

Well, if you agree with Rather, maybe you should give just a smidgen more slack to George W. Bush about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush's sources were more solid by several orders of magnitude than Rather's, and yet it is "obvious" to so many that Bush lied while Rather deserves the benefit of the doubt. George W. Bush had the head of the CIA, the intelligence agencies of all our allies, the Clinton administration, the United Nations, and most of the establishment media generally backing his understanding of the threat from Iraq. Dan Rather had a couple shoddy Xeroxes — not all of which were examined thoroughly or at all. He interviewed a partisan — Ben Barnes — a huge backer of Kerry whose story has changed several times. But because many who hate Bush believe he lied, they are willing to believe any lies that confirm what they already know to be true.

You might say the same to me, since I'm one of those people who've seen Dan Rather as a joke for a very long time. Fair enough. The difference is that I have better evidence on my side.

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