Free Republic

Watching the way the "missing arms" story evolved reminds me of the old newspaper axiom, if there is no news..go out and make some. When the "United Nations Leak" first broke in the New York Times, it supposedly "proved" that Bush was a bad president because of the media-installed template of this election. "The President is responsible for ANYTHING the media says he should be responsible for. For example, car bombings and looting are HIS RESPONSIBILITY." (I don't remember FDR being "blamed" for D-Day deaths. Perhaps his generals made some wrong moves, but armchair quarterbacking is only beneficial to military...

During the Florida debacle of the 2000 election, I found myself wanting candidate Bush to allow the Florida recount just to stop the bleeding and hatred and mistrust. My concern wasn't with placating the political parties - but rather, to prevent Joe six-pack from loosing faith in the election process. I didn't want the common man to becoming as cynical as a lawyer. I reasoned that if there were monitors from both sides, and the votes were counted, if Bush lost, at least he would have stopped the tearing and help diminish distrust and perhaps prevent a legal challenge (revenge)...