You wrote: "The mainstream media's love affair with Bush and his adminstration is so obvious, I don't know how they get away with it."

While the press corps applies microscopic scrutiny to Kerry's statements, looking for evidence of misstatements or "flip-flops," Bush gets little criticism for making blatantly false assertions. Last July (7/14/03), Bush revised the history of the run-up to the Iraq war, claiming that Saddam Hussein refused to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq in late 2002: "Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." Of course, Iraq did allow U.N. weapons inspectors into the country in November 2002; they were withdrawn when war was imminent in March 2003.

Few reporters ever mentioned this substantive falsehood. NPR reporter Mara Liasson (7/17/03) called it "revisionist history," while the Washington Post (7/15/03) timidly noted: "The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring." But most major news sources chose not to bring up Bush's false statement-- the New York Times was silent on the issue, as were the nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS.

Campaign Double Standards

The media "get away with it" by focussing undue attention on distracting trivialities, by endlessly repeating the current mantra, and by studiously avoiding issues and/or questions which might be embarrassing to Pres. Bush, among numerous effective techniques.

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