Saturday, September 25, 2004

More links

The blogger "Beldar," aka William J. Dyer, takes on The Big Lie of the 2004 campaign: the established media assertion--always without corroboration or specifics--that the SwiftVets' allegations were either "unsubstantiated" or "refuted." Hint: they weren't--not one of them. Dredging up a witness who disputes the account of an opponent's witness does not refute him/her; it merely puts the issue into play.

Chicago Sun-Times (this time) columnist
Mark Steyn rips John Kerry for his disgraceful attack on Iraqi prime minister Allawi this week. Two observations stand out: (1) "For Kerry the new world war is just a wedge issue"; and (2) "What a small, graceless man Kerry is."

"Disgraceful." Weekly Standard publisher
William Kristol uses precisely that word to describe Kerry's conduct: "Is this really how Kerry wants to go down in history: Willing to say anything to try to get elected, no matter what the damage to the people of Iraq, to American interests, and even to himself?"

Ann Althouse suggests that Kerry is "desperate": "Remember--around the time of the death of the famously optimistic Reagan--when the candidates used to compete over who was more of an optimist? Now, Kerry seems to have decided that his last hope is to win us over to his dark view of Iraq."

A Washington Times editorial wonders if it has found "Mr. Lockhart's Smoking Gun." The sequence of events is too involved for me to follow, but they seem very confident about it.

Los Angeles Times media columnist
Tim Rutten warns: "CBS: It's more than bad PR." At least some of the employees are aghast: "As the experienced member of the "60 Minutes" staff put it, 'We all think it's a mistake for management to continue to treat this as a public relations problem and not a journalistic problem.'"

Bruce Springsteen, political philosopher, expressed outrage in Rolling Stone that "Fox News and the Republican right have intimidated the press into an incredible self-consciousness about appearing objective." Arthur Chrenkoff is amused: "You've heard it here first: the evil vast right-wing conspiracy has intimidated the media into being... gasp... objective."

Writing for the National Review online,
Victor Davis Hanson is relieved that the liberal generation that grabbed control of the mainstream media is exiting stage left: "Given his history and influence, Dan Rather ... is the right person to take the collective fall for the sins of his brethren."

Re Iran's nuclear program, the French say that the "moment of truth" is approaching. Captain's Quarters blogger
"Captain Ed" Morrissey agrees--to a point: "The moment of truth has nothing to do with Iraqi compliance. It is what the French will do when the Iranians inevitably defy them."

Gerard Baker raises an interesting point in the new Weekly Standard: do the European elites actually hope that Pres. Bush wins?