Posted on 06/30/2004 6:47:42 AM PDT by kattracks
The same media establishment that was so eager to unearth the divorce files of GOP Senate nominee Jack Ryan and destroy his candidacy is still reluctant to give Sen. John Kerry the same treatment. Thank heaven for the Illinois Leader.
As we noted last week, Leader Media Inc. President Dan Proft announced he would sue to open the Democrat presidential candidate's records to the public."Tuesday, the national media began bombarding IllinoisLeader.com, questioning the fledgling operation's intention to take on a fight with national political implications," the conservative Web site reported.
"The Chicago Tribune and a Los Angeles Family Court judge have established a new standard for the release of marital and custodial documents," Proft said. "OK, then everyone in the public arena needs to be held to that standard. John Kerry is the start, but there will be others we will seek to hold to this new standard."
The Leader reported that Proft would appear tonight on Fox News Channel's top-rated "The O'Reilly Factor" and that he had been interviewed by CBS News, ABC News and national print media.
The question hanging in the air: Why are the Tribune and its fellow media giants sitting around with their fingers up their noses when it comes to a potential president's secrets? Oh, right: Kerry is a Democrat.
Kerry's Wall of Silence
Meanwhile, Kerry doesn't want his divorce and custody records exposed anymore than he wants the public to have scrutiny of his complete military and medical records.
"I have no intention of doing that at all. There's no reason whatsoever. It's history, ancient history," he said in Phoenix in an interview with Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo.
"My ex-wife [Julia Thorne] and I are terrific friends, very proud of our children. We have stayed close as an extended family in a sense through those years," he insisted.
"It's none of anybody's business. Period."
He failed to say if he thought Ryan's private records were anybody's business.
Who's John Kerry?
I have a problem with Kerry:
He first married a $300 Mil woman, left her and lived like a pauper and then married the $600 + Mil Teresa. Teresa got her money marrying a rich man. Question: In this family nobody knows to make mony except for selling sex?
Actually one did make mone in a more honorable way: Teresa's first husband. But then again, he was a Republican.
It's precisely because of this imbalance of scandal-power that I think someone, especially the Illinois Leader should sue for the Kerry papers. (At least the divorce papers, and what about the military and health records?)
Tearing into the most private details of candidates' pasts, using such resources as corporate money, institutional publicity, and litigation is very analogous to the problem we have had since WWI really, with weapons of mass destruction.
If one side is hideous enough to lay waste to humanity, whether through poison gas or some other means and the relative good guys are vulnerable, what is there for the good guys to do? Can they find thoroughgoing defenses? If not, is it morally right to be victimized without response, or is remaining unilaterally unarmed what is wrong?
One remembers the lesson of Ronald Reagan. In part, America and the free world won the Cold War because we built and where strategically necessary deployed WMD to outdo the Evil Empire. Peace came through forcefulness in the "marketplace" of that rather abstract war. But in that case, the idea that we would never really use The Bomb was put to rest at its very beginning. Use is what brought nuclear warfare well out of realm of mere abstraction. That very use is what ended for the world its immediately prior war.
Now, how can we counter the assaults of the Larry Flints, George Soros-es, and... Tribune Companies of the nation and win?
Which side has more to hide?
But what must be hidden, really? There is another lesson to learn here: that of The Woman at the Well, who preferred redemption to cover-up. This candidate for our attention chose to be victor rather than victim. She found her sound defense, which disarmed the scandals of her past. Her weaponry was simply the truth revealed in her own life (thanks to The Truth). She even took up the sword herself, victoriously crying out to all who would listen, "Come see a man who has told me everything I have ever done!" They might have called her "the Teflon water-server-woman," foreverafter.
I sure wish Jack Ryan had conferred with his ex-wife over a year ago and one or both had decided to prepare for a public confession, to disarm their ticking bomb as soon as its long chain reaction started. Deep in the character of America still lays appreciation for a story of confession and redemption.
unspun
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PS: Having volunteered in (the innocent) Steve Baer's second, abortive candidacy for Illinois Governor, one recalls that this is by no means the first time the Chicago Tribune has leapt at chances to spread whatever toxins of innuendo and scandal it finds and so attempt to kill a conservative candidacy
NOt only do I want to see the medical records on Clinton, I want the evidence Congress sealed for his immpeachment unsealed and published. I want to see what shocked those few house members (I don't think anyone in the Senate looked at them)who actually took the time to do their duty as sworn jurors in the case.
Thanks for the ping! (I'm for full disclosure)
Very well written piece.
Kerry was a deadbeat dad and his ex-wife had to sue him to pay child support.
Hey thanks, it's always nice to hear a positive word.
"Kerry was a deadbeat dad and his ex-wife had to sue him to pay child support."
Oh. But if he hadn't latched onto the next zillionare heiress with his devilish good looks how did they expect him to have any money?
Uh, why isn't the Tribune suing, hmmmmmmmmmm?
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