INDCJournal: Tapped, Truth to Power and On Deck <b><i>(UPDATED)</i></b>

« Another Unimpeachable Source | Main | Today's Rathergate Round-up »

September 23, 2004

Tapped, Truth to Power and On Deck (UPDATED)

Posted by Bill

I have a schedule full of meetings and spreadsheets, so more light posting today. In the meantime, go read Ace's profanity-laced tirade on why Rathergate matters, and why the media insults your intelligence when they claim to have no ideological bias.

Second, as Kausfiles also points out, this is in fact a major story, no matter how much the liberal media or their political wing, the Democratic Party, would like to pretend it isn't. You've got a high-ranking Kerry aide, former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, on the phone with a CBS producer and an unhinged Texas Democrat who is at least the conveyer of forged documents.

We're told again and again that the media doesn't care which party a story may damage; they're only interested in a juicy story. Well, here's an objectively juicy story, ladies. And yet it keeps getting reported deep in the interior of the paper, and every night we have to listen to sermonettes from you insufferable pricks about what a "distraction" all of this silly CBS-abetted-political-forgery-to-corruptly-change-the-outcome-of-a-political-election seems to be.

Third -- and this is my point -- it sure seems to me that this was considered a "real issue" two weeks ago when it was assumed the documents were authentic and showed that Bush got special treatment in the Guard over thirty fucking years ago.

Harsh? Check. Truth to power? Double-check. Imagine for a second that the Bush campaign had been in contact with some right-wing nutball that peddled forged documents regarding Kerry. Even my liberal readers can't possibly envision that this story would receive the pompous poo-pooing and muted treatment it's getting now, if it had a chance to take down the Bush Administration. Read the whole thing.

I think that Ace may have actually convinced Eric Alterman with that one ... or at least caused him to wet his pants with fear.

Later today, I'll reveal the answer to one of yesterday's questions.

NY Times UPDATE: In case anyone's interested, Rathergate.com spoke with Jayson Blair about the scandal.

More importantly, William Safire tackles the Federal crime angle:

Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. " U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343.

UPDATE: What liberal media bias? In an e-mail, Patterico writes:

Remember when the L.A. Times said Arizona was "in play" for John Kerry -- and then it turned out Bush was leading by 16 points? Now the L.A. Times is reporting that Kerry leads Bush by 15 points in California -- and the L.A. Times says California is "all but locked down" for Kerry!

The contrast could not be more stark.

Read his post on the matter.

UPDATE: Goldstein continues to mine the JFK-Photoshop angle.

Posted by Bill at September 23, 2004 09:18 AM | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Phew! I bet that Kerry is happy now that he's finally gotten California locked down. What's next on his agenda, spending two weeks making sure he's got NY and Mass.? "I'm not a Dukakis, I won three states!"

Posted by: Robert at September 23, 2004 01:10 PM

He's dead even in Maryland. Maryland.

Posted by: Bill from INDC Journal at September 23, 2004 01:14 PM

The MSM outlets are attempting to bolster Kerry's poll numbers in prepartion for the November 3rd Strategy:

(1) When the election results show Bush won the majority of states by significant margins in each state, they can claim vote tampering. Why else would there be such a huge disconnect between their pre-election poll numbers and the election results?

(2) The game is already set in California, as this DU post suggests.

Jeremiah Akin and his father, Mr. Kevin Akin are members of the Peace and Freedom Party. Elimination of the Electoral College is one of the party's platform planks.

(3) MSM == Legacy Technology == Paper and Mechanical voting machines.

Right-wing partisan bloggers == internet == electronic voting machines.

bloggers == internet

hackers == internet

bloggers == hackers

electronic voting machines + hackers = stolen election.

Get it?

Posted by: Bloviate Me at September 24, 2004 08:54 AM

I really wish we could just do away with the phrase "truth to power" and its half-cousin "hegemony."

Posted by: bryan at September 24, 2004 09:58 PM

I employ it with sarcasm.

Posted by: Bill from INDC at September 24, 2004 10:28 PM