Lake Affected

Okay fine, he made a serious error in judgement, but hey, this ain't Watergate, this ain't the worst thing that ever happened [sic]. I find it more puzzling that few journalists attack the very pronounced right-wing bias of a network like Fox, which any media critic will admit is far from "fair and balanced" and, to cite one recent example, treated the Swift Boat claims as true for far too long.

 

But that having been said, why are we obsessing about Rather? The Washington Post did a front page story yesterday about how over 1800 protesters (and a few non-protesters who were caught up by the police erroneously) were held incommunicado for 48 hours with no phone call and no access to lawyers. Whether one is right wing or left wing, this is the kind of story the media should have been all over -- I mean, they were THERE yet when the police and the mayor said everything was fine and the streets were safe, nobody checked it out to see if people were being deprived of their civil liberties. And how come Iraq and Afghanistan are not at the top of people's minds -- could it be because we are busy covering Mr. Rather (and previously whether Mr. Kerry deserved his medals) instead of stories that affect the lives of Americans?

 

Wonder if the same source that told President Bush there was WMD in Iraq also provided Dan Rather with the disputed National Guard documents. Thankfully it's unlikely that several hundred American soldiers and thousands of others will die  before we know whether the Rather documents were forged.