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Edited on Mon Aug-23-04 08:56 PM by ant
The biggest problem I see in journalism today is this tendency to overreach in an effort to appear unbiased, fair, whatever.
This effort would makes sense if we were talking about candidates with legitimately different points of views on how to, say, improve the economy or get out of Iraq. I would even say that although I disagree with the president's policies and think he's an incompetent fool, it would not be Matthews place to say that unless he made it clear he was simply expressing his own opinion. And if his opinion is the opposite, that's fine as well.
The problem here is that we are not talking about legitimate differences of opinion. We are talking about truth and lies. People are lying about Kerry, making all sorts of simply absurd claims in the hopes that something will stick. I'll give Matthews credit for laughing at Michelle whatever's claims, but he has shown himself to be completely uninformed and uninterested in THE FACTS of this "controversy."
(Edited to add some evidence, since I am ranting about it and all: early on in the SBV thing Matthews had some guests on his show and one of them pointed out that the doctor in the ad was not the doctor who had signed Kerry's records. This information had been out for a few days already, but Matthews was sincerely surprised to hear it, and commented that if it was true it would raise serious questions about the credibility of the SBV. While he gets points for keeping an open mind that way, he loses points for apparently not having done any homework at all on the issue he was set to discuss on his show. That's just lazy, bad journalism, and he should've been ashamed and embarrassed to have such a simple fact surprise him.)
If there was any evidence at all to support these accusations, then I would agree that Matthews and others have a responsibility to report on them. But not only is there no such evidence, the evidence that does exist completely contradicts the Kerry critics, AND there's plenty of evidence, though perhaps circumstantial, to support the argument that the SBV is nothing more than a political attack group. If anything these vets have a personal gripe with Kerry because he spoke out after the war, and Bush is more than happy to feed them money and take advantage of their bitterness.
To treat this "debate" as if it's two sides with equally valid points of view would be the same as presenting creationsim and evolution as two theories on equal footing. They are not, and to present them as such requires that one ignore the basic facts of the case.
That is what Matthews and many others have been doing, ignoring the basic facts of the case, and for that they are, at best, completely incompetent.
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