Bush War Room Does Media's Job
July 14, 2004
Listen to Rush… (...expose a Kerry flip-flop, ignored by the mainstream press until the war room nailed it)
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RUSH: My buddy Jim Rutenberg from the New York Times -- and I have to tell you, Rutenberg, any time he's talked to me about a story, he's quoted me accurately and the story has always been good, and when I see Rutenberg's byline I believe it in the New York Times, and that's just from personal experience. The headline of the story: "In Bush's War Room the Gloves are Always Off." This is an amazing story, and again I don't want to do damage to Mr. Rutenberg's career here by praising him and citing him here, but I have to. This is the Raspberry Effect. Oftentimes I will praise a mainstream journalist to their detriment because their colleagues wonder what they've done "wrong" to get my praise.
"Shortly before 2 p.m. on Monday, a handful of President Bush's campaign aides huddled around two small speakers in a room that, with its shades drawn, was lit by the glow of 15 television monitors. They were listening to the voice of Senator John Kerry. None of the networks were carrying Mr. Kerry's entire speech to a group of [financial] donors, mostly women, in Boston that day. But Mr. Bush's operatives had somehow arranged for their own audio feed, they refused to say how, and were listening intently, ready to pounce on any opening for attack." So this, the Bush war room, but hang with me here.
"After sitting impatiently through what seemed to be a typical stump speech, they found [an opening for attack). Mr. Kerry said he was 'proud' of votes by him and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, last fall against the president's requested $87 billion appropriation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a vote that Republicans have used to make a case that Kerry has been failing to support the troops after voting to authorize the war. Within an hour or so, Bush's team, at the campaign's headquarters in a corporate office building in suburban Virginia, across the..." Okay, Jim. We get where they were. Listen to this description: "[I]n a corporate office building in suburban Virginia, across the Potomac River from the White House." Why not say "across from National Airport, across from the Air and Space Museum?"
"...had sent a release via e-mail to hundreds of journalists, supporters and campaign surrogates. The e-mail message included the new quote [from Kerry] and one from September, when Mr. Kerry implied it would be 'irresponsible'' to vote against such spending," the $87 billion. "The quotation, along with the idea that Mr. Kerry's position on the money had evolved, found its way onto Fox News and into articles in The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press. And this was a relatively slow day in Mr. Bush's war room. Several journalists who cover," (EIB emphasis added)
This is the nut here of the story. This is the nut graph. "Several journalists who cover Mr. Kerry later said they were too embarrassed to say publicly that it took the Bush operatives to spot what was notable in Mr. Kerry's remarks." Now, this reminds me of when Clinton went down to Texas shortly after his retroactive tax increase. He was talking to some fat-cat Democrat fund-raisers out there, or donors and, he said he made a mistake in raising their taxes. He said, "I think I raised your taxes too much." New York Times was there, didn't catch it. Washington Post was there, didn't catch it. I think it was a wire service reporter, a stringer for Reuters or somebody who caught it and reported it. No other reporter got it. It's not that they weren't paying attention. It didn't register. It wasn't a big deal. A Democrat president admitting such a mistake? Eh, yawner, ho-hummer. They said, "It was a long day. This was a nighttime speech, been on a plane all day. We were just tired. We just missed it."
Now, typically, reporters said, you know, they were just too embarrassed to admit they gave Kerry a pass on his new rationale for his vote against the $87 billion funding, and it was the Bush team that had to point it out to them and when the Bush team pointed out, Oh!" They got it. "Yeah, damn. We missed that." They didn't miss it. They were too embarrassed to admit they gave Kerry a pass, and this is why I like Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times, because he reports this, and he actually -- I mean this is his line. He's not quoting anybody: "Several journalists who cover Kerry later said they were too embarrassed to say publicly that it took the Bush operatives to spot what was notable in Kerry's remarks." Meaning: if the Bush war room had not been listening to their exclusive audio feed of the whole thing, the press would not have picked up on the policy reversal on the contradiction, whatever you want to call it.
Kerry changing it -- flip-flopping, in essence. The press would not have picked up on it, probably because they're not looking for Kerry errors. They're not looking for Kerry mistakes. That's not their mindframe. They're not looking to be critical of Kerry. They're not looking to point out inconsistencies or inaccuracies. They're totally zeroed in on that when it comes to Bush and Cheney. So I'm going to look for Jim Rutenberg's byline in the New York Times in the next two or three days to make sure he still has a job. It's one thing to publish this story for the Times, another thing to have it heralded by the eeevil, wicked right-wing attack machine, which I have just done.
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