From NRO's The Corner: TWO SCANDALS
[Jonah Goldberg]
Last night, NPR introduced a commentary by Daniel Schorr by saying something to the effect of <font color=blue>"The controversy over George W. Bush's Guard service continued to rage this week..."<font color=black> The gist made it sound like the Memogate story is part of the same scandal as what Bush did in Alabama. Schorr went on to underscore how the media is now obsessed with what the candidates did thirty years ago. I've heard this theme in lots of coverage. Indeed, Dan Rather himself wants the story to be about the Higher Truth of his report -- what Bush did or didn't do thirty years ago -- not the actual facts in it.
So do the Democrats, but for slightly different reasons. The Democrats simply want to beat Bush. That's fair, they're Democrats. Rather wants the heat off his back and he thinks the real story is about Bush, not him. That's why he's saying the story's accurate even though the evidence isn't.
Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus thinks the CBS stonewall might hurt Bush because it keeps the guard story in the news. Kaus's motives are honest, of course, but I think he's wrong.
Here's why: For a great many of us -- journalists, bloggers, citizens etc -- this story has absolutely nothing to do with Bush. This is my own personal sense of it, but I don't think very many people who are wading into the Rather story care about what Bush did thirty years ago. I'm sure quite a few of them even dislike Bush a great deal or they aren't supporting him. Andrew Sullivan (who's got a good outraged post today) despises Bush. Howard Kurtz is no partisan. The good folks at ABC News are never at the VRWC bingo night Etc, etc.
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This story is fun, important, exciting, fascinating etc. because it's about what Dan Rather and CBS did and are doing in the here and now to report a story they could not prove.<font size=3> I've been on record for a long time: I don't care about the Guard story. I suppose Bush probably didn't conduct himself as honorably and dutifully as he should have during his final two years, but I don't care anymore. I've digested that allegation. That's why I think Kaus is wrong and Rather's (and the Democrats') gamble is foolish; most Americans have digested this info too. The focus on Kerry's behavior 30 years ago hurts Kerry because he's got so much invested in what he did back then. Bush invested some old pennies, a button and some pocket lint on his exploits thirty years ago. That's why Kerry's numbers went down when attention was focussed on his record. Bush's stayed the same or went up.
The Bush story is played-out dudes. It's old, it's dull and even if Rather nailed it, it would still be old news to people.
The Kerry stuff is fresh and farr more relevant because Kerry's running on his behavior from back then. Thus this tit-for-tat about what the two men did back then is so absurd, a creation of the media's childish obsession with parallelism and the Democrats' silly effort to make this very important election about events which pre-date Watergate.
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What's interesting is that Rather can't see this. He wants Bush to answer the questions his fraudulent report has raised. He thinks people want to hear that stuff. They don't. The Democrats agree not because they need more info before they make up their minds but because they have made up their minds already.
This story is not about Bush. And Dan can click his heels together as many times as he wants saying <font color=blue>"It's about Bush"<font color=black> over and over and it won't change that fact. |
