Two major American newspapers — one in Philadelphia, and one in Chicago — have stories today about whether John Kerry's campaign will soon be hit with charges of infidelity with a young woman, a story raised publicly by the Drudge Report Thursday morning. Senator Kerry said there is nothing to talk about regarding all this on the Don Imus Show this morning, but used language vague enough to raise questions in the wake of the last Democratic President's quibble over the meaning of 'is.'  While the internet was firing away on the story yesterday, the major news media and the national televison news networks took a pass.

Compare this to the blanket coverage of the charges that President Bush was AWOL from his national guard unit in 1972 in Alabama. This sleaze campaign, first explored in the 2000 campaign by the Boston Globe, was begun anew by DNC chairman Terry McAulliffe,  and has become a day—and—night saturation story. Jay Leno spent several minutes on it last night, which he would not do if he did not think the audience was aware of the story. 

When editorials, op—eds, and news stories address the issue every day, somebody or some people want it to be an important story. The AWOL charge is made, and the President is guilty until proven innocent.

A recent report on the three major networks' national news coverage, indicated that in the months of December and January, the coverage of John Kerry was 96% positive, Senator John Edwards 100% positive, and Presient Bush, 32% positive. Even Howard Dean, whose campaign was coming apart in January, received 58% favorable coverage during the period. 

As an example of the coverage on Bush, reports on the Kay report on WMD, never mentioned that Kay said the President made the right decision to go into Iraq, despite any bad intelligence he may have received, or that Kay said some WMD may have been moved to Syria.  The focus was all on the bad intelligence, and that no WMD have been discovered yet.

One might think there was a conspiracy underway to sink the President and lift up Kerry and the Democrats.

Is that possible?  Do the national media have a stake in all this? Do Washington correspondents care who wins? Does the fact that more than 90% or them admit to having  voted for Clinton say something about their politics? Do Dan Rather or Peter Jennings, and Charles Gibson want Bush to lose? 

The release of the national guard story was designed to undermine the President's character, one area where polling shows he remains strongly connected to  most voters. Add the Kay and WMD story, and its  focus  on Bush's credibility, and his misleading of the American people, and more damage on the character issue is done. This is not accidental.
This promises to be a particularly ugly election year. The Republicans may be matched on campaign spending by the new left wing 527 groups, and George Soros's bankroll.

But the free media counts for much more, and it is weighting in with invaluable assistance to the Democrats.  To think this is unintentional is naive. We have come to expect NPR and the New York Times to be hostile to Bush, and they are. But the networks are not supposed to be quite that blatant in their partisanship.

Those of us who have watched how the media frame the Middle East conflict have years of experience with Peter Jennings, and NPR and others who have taken sides. This year's Presidential election, has high stakes, and it will not just be left to the people to decide.

Posted by Richard  02 13 04