| I do not presume that they are forced to go fishing, no. There is a reasonable degree of scrutiny that every candidate must expect, and if something is thrown in reporters' laps, they may have to react. I suppose once it came up, the DUI thing had to be run. But it was not worth going out of one's way to look for. At a certain point, it is just morbid curiosity, and degrading to pursue to such lengths. It means precisely nothing. There is no pattern of offenses, it was too long ago, it is in itself to trivial (DUI, not DWI), and too ambiguous (he was at the legal limit, and would almost certainly have been acquitted had he mounted a defense). The most one can get out of it is that he is a gentleman whose first instinct is to take responsibility. That may be worth knowing, but one would have to cut through the noise to focus on it. Similarly with the military thing: all one needs to know is that he was not subject to court martial, and that he was honorably discharged. If the National Guard was satisfied, I am satisfied. It is not as if anyone has found evidence that the Guard was subject to political manipulation. At a certain point, you stop beating a dead horse, and leave the man alone. If he does not want to dignify insinuations with an interview on the matter, well, there is nothing really he need answer for........ |
