But .. The Bush people are not good at "I told you so". They believe it's small and petty. It is .. but in the case of public information regarding the war .. I think they need to change their policy.
The only way they will do that is if we start sending them messages regarding this. And .. reminding the Bush team that it's not petty to expose the NYT attempt to hide this story. Yes, WE ARE AT WAR .. against the democrat spin.
Also .. even on FOX, they pre-empted the President's speech on the economy to run a story about the death of Brando. I was livid and let FOX know .. I was upset that they couldn't wait 5 minutes to report a death. And .. for more than 10 minutes of the President's speech, they had their banner claiming the death .. which meant they were not highlighting what the President was saying. With friends like these ...??
Your analysis is clear-eyed and full of things I wish I'd thought to say. I do wish they would continually point to the NY Times, by name, on the inaccuracies of its stories. Just bring it out in the open. I believe the public has enough distrust of the press that it would be a productive strategy. I think we are still a few elections away from having that kind of Republican running for the Presidency, though. I think the consensus is still to stick with the meekness response to political attacks.
In the past, Presidents have used their Vice Presidents as bulldogs to say the tough things that do not necessarily "rise" to the level of dignity that a President should display. The best, and worst, example of this was Spiro Agnew within the Nixon Administration. He did the bare-fisted fighting with the media and the "effete imputent snobs" which Nixon felt he couldn't, as President.
I know Dick Cheney is a man of dignity, but he should be assigned to go around and rub the Democrats' and the media's nose in stories like this. Perhaps he's gearing up for this, taking Kerry and Dems to task a bit this week, but something like what you stated needs to take place. It's long past due.