The Blind Hen

BS News

I wish someone would pursue a study of all the editoral cartoons which appeared in the top 25 circulation US newspapers in the year leading up to the election. I wonder what percentage of them would be pro Bush? Based on what I see, I would say they have been predominately anti Bush. So, when one comes down the pike that goes against the grain, it merits wider publication.

David Halberstam

Instapundit quotes David Halberstam on RatherGate:

"What they did was very stupid," Halberstam said. "But they have been heading in that direction for a long time. I've always been critical of this whole business of star journalism, where you have a big anchor coming on air and acting as a prosecutor with someone else's reporting. In many instances over the years on that program the reports have been lightly or poorly sourced and the reporting suffers as a result. Dan Rather right now is the principal anchor of the Evening News, but he is also the program's main reporter. Then he's the anchor of 48 Hours. On top of that he's the star of 60 Minutes II. That's just too much for one person and it leads to the kind of sloppiness in their reporting that just happened."

I wish Prof. Reynolds had taken this quote to task. Nowhere in it does Halberstam for a moment consider that bias toward President Bush and the republicans might have played a role in CBS's rush to judgment. Halberstam, a gifted man no doubt, is a member of the Eastern establishment which is awash
in groupthink, convinced that the fact that they all think alike is the result of the natural order of things, and that the rest of us simply don't understand the nuances the world presents.

As one fish said to the other, "Water? What water?"

Channelling JFK

I read speculation somewhere that Kerry will quote JFK during the debate, and asked the question if anyone can remember any good lines that JFK got off against Nixon in 1960. I remember one. After listening to Nixon talk about Kennedy's stance on something, JFK replied, "No one can misstate my position with more precision than the Vice President." Let's see if Kerry tries to use it. If he does, will it mean he's reading The Blind Hen? He could do worse.

Debate drinking games: How many times will Kerry say "Vietnam", "Kennedy", "nuance", "quagmire", "coalition", "failed", etc.

And, in the "under" category, how many times will Kerry say "Teletubbies", "sun tan", "Cambodia", "windsurfing", etc.

Just occurred to me. If I were Bush, I'd mention Laura about a half dozen times.

Yogi Berra

Glenn Reynolds is linking today to a few stories about republican over confidence. I agree with him wholehearatedly. About a month ago, I criticized Hugh Hewitt for calling the presidential race all but over; similar "its in the bag" talk can frequently be seen at Powerline and Vodka Pundit. I remember in 2000 that Rush Limbaugh was supremely over confident, and Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ about an upcoming Bush victory of "Reagan proportions."

Well, they were both quite wrong, and I wonder how many republican voters in New Mexico and Florida stayed home last election day because of the Limbaugh/Noonan over confidence?

Its not over til its over, and The Blind Hen is betting that it still won't be over when the sun comes up on November 3rd.

I Was a Kerry Supporter

I Was a Kerry Supporter... Until Yesterday

I live in Ohio, and went to see President Bush speak in West Chester yesterday. I was a Kerry fan... until the President won me over yesterday.

My first doubts about John Kerry came when I attended the Kerry rally in Zanesville over Labor Day weekend. It was not what I expected of him at all. He danced around every issue he spoke about, and a few of the issues that are important to me he didn't touch base on at all. What a contrast with President Bush. When the President started speaking today he talked about his family -- and how important family is to him. He spoke to us, and not at us. He seems to really care about what is going on in the lives of the American people and their families.

I, for one, am a young single parent living on one income. I am a homeowner and I guess you could say I make a pretty decent living, but when you are the sole income in your family you tend to worry about health care, taxes and education first and foremost. Every dime counts and I have worked extremely hard to make sure my daughter has everything she needs, but I know first hand how hard it is to be mother and provider in one. When President Bush speaks about how important every family is, that means something to me.

Beyond that, the rally was just very patriotic. I am a military brat and have seen some pretty awesome patriotic things while traveling the globe as a little girl, but this was by far the best display for me of what our country stands for yet.

I have been a Democrat by definition of the issues and have really looked forward to being able to vote that way this election thinking that John Kerry was a viable candidate. Kudos to President Bush. He's got my vote this election.

Julie Johnson-Huff
Trenton, Ohio

Shamelessly stolen from the Bush Campaign Blog

Jimmuh Carter

Vodkapundit quotes from President Carter on what's missing from Florida's voting system:

"Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy."

Funny, isn't it, but this is damn near the same reason the U.S. Supreme Court shut down the "let's keep trying to find more votes for Al Gore" re-counting that occured in Florida in 2000.

Oh High Oh

Hindrocket at Powerline writes about W's successful rally in Ohio, and closes with this remark about a woman shown in a photo:

"Just another sign that we're cruising to victory.

"ONE MORE THING: The young lady in the photo is wearing a very profound "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Democrat" button. If every Republican persuaded a single misguided, undecided voter to either stay home or vote for the President, the election would be a landslide. "Each one teach one," as the Commies used to say, many years ago."

John, do you remember what happened to the Commies?

Yesterday

Yesterday we speculated that Dan Rather may be trying to lay the blame for the CBS debacle on his boss, CBS News chief Andrew Heyward. Today we note the following account of behavior at Barbara Walters' retirement party.

"Witnesses said Rather and Heyward never greeted each other or shook hands, furthering speculation that the two are battling over who will get blamed for using fake documents earlier this month in the now notorious story about President Bush's National Guard Service."

Rather's Strategy?

Powerline pulls this quote from the latest NYT story on the 60 Minutes fraud:

"This is not verbatim," Mr. Rather recalled. "But I said: 'Andrew, if true, it's breakthrough stuff. But I need to do something unusual. It may even be
unique. I have to ask you to oversee, in a hands-on way, the handling of this story, because this is potentially the kind of thing that will cause great controversy.'
“He got it. He immediately agreed.”

Couple of things. Here is a story which Dan Rather thought at the time to be so explosive (Read: might influence the outcome of a presidential election) that he punted ultimate responsibility for it to his boss, Andrew Heyward, head of CBS news. How bad does this make CBS look now, considering the lackadaisical way in which it vetted the forged documents? Should not the more important a network considers a story, the MORE CAREFUL they should be about authenticating the documents on which the story is based? This is a tad more serious than a golf commentator at the Masters making the wrong call on yards to the pin when Tiger Woods is approaching the green.

Second, there is the curious post script: “He got it.” What did Andrew 'get'? Did he get that Rather was saying he – Rather – had doubts about the story that producer Mary Mapes had assembled and that Rather wanted Andrew to spike it if he didn’t like the smell? Could this be the opening salvo in Rather’s attempt to put Andrew's or Mape's head, and not his, on the chopping block?

Can you imagine Dan embellishing his story in the next few days: “I told Andrew--this is not verbatim-- this was a very explosive story, strong stuff, stronger than week old Texas road kill. I told him Mary had put this thing together, she’s really excited about it. But that I wasn’t so sure she had her ducks in a row. This 'ole boy isn't about to get in a pissing match with a skunk, so I wanted Andrew to look at this with a fine toothed comb. After all, when its time for the cow to eat the cabbage, Andrew's the boss and he has to make the call.”

As they used to say, don’t change that channel.

Dan Rather

Dan the Man says: "But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment (no, the problem was not a mistake in judgment, the problem is that you did not exercise judgment at all), and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith (no, Dan, it was not made in good faith at all, it was made in the utmost bad faith) and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism (strike 3; it is precisely because you were so committed to playing favorites that you rushed to the air a story with virtually no credible factual background whatsoever.) Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully. (If this is true, well Danny Boy, you just bought the store).

Dan, you are either an incompetent fraud or a liar, or both.