This is an interesting story about how one sideded the alphabet channels are in their coverage of the George W. Bush AWOL charge versus their coverage of the Swiftvets for Truth veterans coming out against John Kerry in their book, Unfit for Command.
Reporters put the onus on Bush to prove the critics wrong. “Given the absence of any witnesses who could fill in those gaps and corroborate the President’s recollection,“ ABC’s Terry Moran insisted on February 10, “the issue is not going to go away.” CBS was even more demanding (see box).But holes in Kerry’s record aren’t treated as suspicious. On the issue of Kerry’s first wound in 1968, then-Coastal Division 14 Commander Grant Hibbard says Kerry came to his office asking for a Purple Heart for what amounted to a scratch. As recounted in Unfit for Command (page 38), “I told Kerry to ‘forget it.’ There was no hostile fire, the injury was self-inflicted for all I knew, besides it was nothing more than a scratch. Kerry wasn’t getting a Purple Heart recommendation from me.” But when the issue became news in April, the networks made it a one-day story, even though the records Kerry released failed to include the paperwork supporting the Purple Heart award.
I remember when the AWOL charge was floating around. The press bent over backwards to give a hard time to President Bush, giving the benefit of the doubt to his accusers.
But with these accusations againt Kerry the press is bending over backwards to give a hard time to the accusers?
And people doubt that the media is left leaning?
