Lies, damn lies, and lots of hand waiving in the Main Stream Media.
A friend of mine recently asked an interesting and important question:

How can you support Bush/Cheney when they have effectively stated that a vote for Kerry supports further terrorist attacks?

I couldn't. Such a statement would be reprehensible. But then, no one ever said that.

Here is Cheney's statement according to the Nightly News

Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.

Pretty damning. But there is a small problem. Here is the actual quote by Cheney from the transcript of the speech

Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.

Ok. One isolated incident. Not so bad. People make mistakes. Well then what about the latest explosion of the 60 minute story about Bushe's ANG service?

The short take on the subject is that documents were uncovered that demonstrate that Bush was derelict in his Air National Guard duty during Vietnam. Unfortunately for CBS, there is a small problem: There is significant ample evidence that the documents are a forgery, from Donald Sensing pointing out that the documents make no sense from a military perspective, to Charles Johnson pointing out that the documents were written in MS Word, and exhibit characteristics not possible of a typewriter in 1972.

And what about the 'Bush supporters booed Clinton when Heart Bypass was announced' story? This also turned out to be a complete fabrication.

This brings me to my question. When did the Main Stream Media stop fact checking anything? How long have we been accepting outright fabrications from our media simply because they were the gatekeepers of news? Who declared CBS et al the authority on what is 'authentic' news?

At the end of the day, I think the astonishing thing about this story is that Bush is 10 points ahead of Kerry in spite of MSM highlighting every possible damaging story that passes their desk. If anything good comes of this election, it will be the end of the monoculture of the MSM, and a return to openly biased and competing news outlets compiling facts and presenting reasonable analysis - while openly advertising their slant on things. If we are to enjoy the benefits of a Free Press then let it truly be free, not a monocultural voice for a particular ideology. Neither party should lay claim over the MSM. And I look forward to the day when CBS and the rest report on all news, not just the 'news'.

UPDATE: The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same (Bloom County 1984).