Anatomy of a Smear (by Jack Lessenberry)

[Octafish]

Here's what a REAL journalist reads like:

Anatomy of a Smear

Late last week, much of the nation’s “respectable” media went frantic over a “breaking” new story that they were dying to nail down so that they could lead the pack in reporting the breathtaking slimy details … just as long as they didn’t have to do it first.

Here’s what was going on: CBS and Time and ABC, The New York Times, etc., were tripping all over themselves in a frantic race to uncover a wonderfully sleazy sex scandal that might turn the entire presidential campaign around.

This all started when, early Thursday, Matt Drudge, the Internet gossip columnist, reported that John Kerry, the all-but-certain Democratic presidential nominee, had a recent affair with a young woman, perhaps an intern, who “recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry.”

That was enough to set off a behind-the-scenes feeding frenzy of massive proportions. Drudge, in case you didn’t know, is a journalist in the same way crack cocaine is medication. He finished near the bottom of his high school class and moved to Hollywood, where he worked in a CBS gift shop. Fascinated by celebrities and computers, he started an Internet Web site devoted to gossip.

CONTINUED...

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=5949

[The Traveler]

1. Drudge lit the match and threw it on the gas ...

But rumors of this were circulating weeks before Drudge issued his report. People were looking into it cautiously because the story's roots were so flimsy. They still are flimsy. Politics by rumor and innuendo ... gutter level gossip. Repeat the Big Lie often enough and people will believe it. These are the techniques of the propagandists in power ... Dr. Goebbels and Lenin would be so proud of these boys and girls.

[Octafish]

3. Rumors are one thing, the truth is another.

And that's where Rove comes in. He and his teachers learned at the knee of Goebels. They are one and the same in spirit.

[eileen_d]

2. Gee, I didn't realize Kerry could get "smeared" by the media

I thought all of this fuss was simply to gauge his electability. </sarcasm>

[Octafish]

4. That which does not kill us, gives us free publicity.

Judging from my colleagues, most of the ones who are going to vote DEM are more interested in knowing what Kerry's about than what Sludge drudged up. The folks who support Bushler are shocked -- seriously, shocked -- to discover who Kevin Phillips is and what he's been saying about the Bush dyansty. After that, I hit 'em with the BFEE lowdown. It doesn't work for them all, but it does plant the seed of doubt. And doubt is the beginning.