A few days ago, President Bush attacked Sen. Kerry for a vote to "gut" US intelligence services in 1995.
Turns out, reports liberal-ish columnist Matthew Miller today, that Kerry wanted to cut "roughly $300 million a year from a roughly $300 billion annual budget."
That's about 1 percent. What would that "gut?"
Miller's conclusion is that the President's charge is "beyond preposterous" and therefore, an intentional deception. He figures it's either a measure of how dumb the White Houise thinks we are or how anxious it is about the election.
I don't. I think this is a story about a White House that knows how to use the press.
Miller's rejoinder, you see, was late. It wasn't in the first stories. How many voters will ever read it?
Fact is, years after Senator Joseph McCarthy burned them with phony lists of "subversives," reporters still accept the statement or event as news, rather than seek immediate context.
So if the truth gets printed, it's the next day or week or month. Better than nothing, I suppose, but not good news for readers.
Journalism 101, anybody?