The major U.S. news media finally broadcast and published high-profile stories on what Sen. John Kerry said three days ago, what he meant to say, and the furor he caused.
It looked bad, Kerry telling a Pasadena City College crowd that, if you don’t study hard and make an effort to be smart, “you get stuck in Iraq.”
It looked as if Kerry was saying a U.S. military career was only for stupid, lazy losers. The big news media reported the gaffe last night and this morning. Kerry said he meant the “you” to mean President Bush, and the “you get stuck in Iraq” was supposed to be “you (Bush) end up getting us (hoodwinked Americans) stuck in Iraq.” The news media reported this explanation, too.
Democratic setback. The story was reported a little late but fairly (except in the case of The New York Times). Overall, it was a setback for the image of the Democratic Party. The blunder worries the Democrats, because they are within a week of an election in which they are favored to regain power in at least one house of Congress.
Now count on this: You won’t see any other story like that until after the Nov. 7 election.
Already, a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs has found that, in the last two months’ run-up to next week’s election, 77 percent of the TV network news coverage of Democratic candidates was positive, but only 12 percent of network news coverage of Republicans was positive.
Republicans’ token. For the last seven days of this campaign, we just saw the Republicans’ token 12 percent. From here on in, ABC, CBS and NBC will be working full-time as Democratic Party cheerleaders.
CNN will continue its Democratic telethon, too, countered by the Republican heavies at Fox News.
I guess this is the way it’s supposed to be.
Frank Warner
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