A Boston Tea Party …(Lawyers, Used Car Salesmen, And Journalists)

We have all heard the many jokes about lawyers and used car salesmen. It is now time to add journalists to that select group. A once proud career choice has definitely gone down the crapper. The story of the missing RDX explosive from Iraq is a blatant attempt by journalists to provide the Democrats with the momentum needed for victory next Tuesday. The New York Times willingness to provide nonfactual information and the willingness of the Kerry campaign to pounce on the story is utterly shameless.

The New York Times continues to show its bias towards Kerry. Last week Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed piece explaining why President Bush would instill a military draft even though the President flatly denies it. This week on the eve of the election the Times with the help of CBS News decides to run a story on missing explosives in Iraq. As the hours pass it becomes more and more clear that there is no evidence to support the story that this happened on Bush’s watch. The lack of fact in the story was well known by Tuesday evening. So imagine my surprise as I watched “Hardball” with Tim Mathews last night, seeing Tim, Evan Thomas of Newsweek, and Ron Reagan Jr. continually talking about the mistakes the Bush administration had made with these explosives. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal kept telling them that the story was missing valuable details and that no conclusions could be made at this point. Those details were not important to Mathews, Thomas, and Reagan. What was important was their personal belief that Bush must lose regardless of known facts. You watch things like this happen right in front of you and it amazes you how little integrity these people have for true journalism and reporting. Contrast that with FOX News this morning reporting that the International Atomic Energy Agency showed in January of 2003 only 3 tons of RDX was being stored not the 380 tons reported by the Times. Imagine had there been a simulcast of “Hardball” and FOX News, a stark difference between the real story and the wishful thinking story.

Kerry’s continues to blame Bush for nearly everything. First it was the scare of a potential draft, then the lack of flu shots, and now the missing explosives. The real story is not important. He hopes that if he blames the President for breathing, he might get a few more votes. He is very selective about the news he follows. Kerry doesn’t mind if the news lacks facts just so long as it is negative. Conveniently, Kerry fails to mention major news stories like the oil for food scandal at the United Nations because the facts in that story do not support Kerry’s efforts. Kerry is more than willing to use both the print media and television news to his advantage. I don’t expect him to mention in the remaining hours of the election that Russia quite possibly moved the explosives to Syria as reported by Bill Gertz of the Washington Post.

The real October surprise will be if The New York Times, CBS, “Hardball”, and John Kerry apologize to the American people for getting the story wrong and rushing to judgment. It is much more likely that they will apologize sometime after the election assuming Kerry wins. A tainted win made possible by a tainted profession.