Gee, an opportunity to correct Steyn - does not happen often. The truth behind the George H.W. Bush supermarket scanner episode is that he was speaking at some "American Grocer's Association Convention" - and he was shown a new scanner technology - 3-D barcode scanning. Bush was not unfamiliar with supermarket scanners - but he was told that it was new and so he asked the demonstrator "How des this work?" The hostile press reported it as if he had never seen a supermarket scanner, when in fact he was seeing
this new variant of scanner technology for the first time.
As they say - when the myth becomes legend - print the legend.
This tendency for things to get out of control without regard for the facts is a disturbing part of journalism these days. Oddly the reaction is to dismiss or underweight certain information because of the track record of the media in general. Thus - stories like the allegation of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are not evaluated on the truth or falsity of what they say - but are shot down ab initio as being "immoral" (Bill O'Reilly made this indefensible remark) or "gutter politics" Ugh!
Wow! do you have a source for that about GHWB? Never mind, I found it at snopes while working on this reply. Here is the link for all to use if you ever hear this false claim again:
Maybe I'm Amazed From the link:
"Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times hadn't even been present at the grocers' convention. He based his article on a two-paragraph report filed by the lone pool newspaperman allowed to cover the event ..." and it went on from there. NYT again! Imagine that.