Reply #9: Would they have? [View All]

[dsc]

Not according to the press a Washington Post editorial as quoted by the Daily Howler.

But Moody hardly stands alone in his hopeless assessment of the press corps’ conduct. Indeed, the corps’ flogging of Dean’s concession speech has produced one useful result; it has led some scribes to pen revealing accounts of their own cohort’s conduct. For our money, the most revealing assessment came in an editorial in last Saturday’s Washington Post. “he speech itself was not as bad as the reaction to it would suggest,” the Post said. “One could imagine Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) giving a similar war whoop and not sustaining anything like the damage that has accrued to Mr. Dean.” So why was Candidate Dean hammered hard, when Candidate Kerry, after such a war whoop, “might well have been congratulated for shedding his aloof image?” According to the Post, “he speech has caused such big trouble for Mr. Dean because it so graphically evoked already-present worries about the candidate’s temperament.” The editors reviewed other press frenzies, fleshing out the point they had made:

Again, this is the press itself saying that had Kerry done this it would have been played quite differently. Of course they didn't admit that the tape was a lie (gee I am shocked) but at least they admit that they wouldn't have done this to Kerry. Seems the people who actually do this don't agree with you.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh012904.shtml