This Just In!

Mainstream press finally investigates Bushie mantra that Kerry flip-flops on Iraq, finds charge baseless. Kerry's position consistent over two years. Here's the story!

NEWS ANALYSIS / Flip-flopping charge unsupported by facts / Kerry always pushed global cooperation, war as last resort

Not that it will be too surprising to readers here.

The media is in a tough spot because their mistakes, shortcuts and derelictions of duty get enormously magnified, with major impact especially in a campign like this--- but that's their responsibility.

It's the deceptive short-cuts that are most insidious. On CNN's Aaron Brown last night, he referred to the "discredited CBS story" on Bush's National Guard favoritism and evasions. But the story has not been discredited. One document and its source are in question. Most of the story is utterly solid.

And their political reporter again referred to John Kerry's "vote for the war." Kerry did not vote for the war, as he has explained and others have explained many times. His vote in the Senate was to authorize the President to take a series of steps that could end up with the use of force. It's just not the same thing. A vote for the war means Bush said, "I want to go to war on Iraq, and send the troops in there tomorrow. Are you with me?" What Kerry voted for was very different. Bush said, "I need authorization to use force so Sadam will know I'm serious and he'll let the inspectors do a thorough job, so we'll know if he has WMDs or not. Meanwhile I will get our allies together in case we have to go to war, but before we do anything like that, we'll have a thorough well thought-out plan for Iraq afterwards, and we'll have everybody on board---our major allies, our experts---before we do anything It would help my credibility if you would vote this authorization, even though I probably don't need it."

You can fault Kerry for believing Bush when not a lot of other people did. But it's not accurate to say he voted For The War. The news people should know this, they should know most of all that the statement is contested, and that in continuing to use their deceptive shorthand, they are parrotting the Bush campaign argument.

Is it too "nuanced?" To say that is to believe that the decisions that people make every day are too complicated for them to understand. Everybody who does business or who shops for insurance or has to get a car repaired or anything else in normal life, has to deal with a string of contingencies---I'll do this first and if it works, great. (The inspections, which Bush didn't allow to be completed because they weren't finding th eWMD he wanted them to find) If it doesn't, I'll do that, but I'll need some help to get it done, so I'll talk to a few friends and associates first and see if they can help me.
Now what else do I need to do to make this successful? Plan ahead for later. Yeah. Sounds like a plan.