Centerfield

You are exactly right, Rick. "Disheartened" was the word I used last week to sum up my feelings. I have a theory that many in the middle are disheartened and, as a result, turnout outside of each party's respective base is going to be lower than expected.

Because of what has transpired in the campaigns so far, these may be the most important debates in a long time. I will be paying more attention than ever because I have never been undecided this late.

Careless youth = trained fighter pilot, Yale, and Harvard Business school? Perhaps I missed the Cheech and Chong movie where they do these things.

Do you honestly accept the NYT article as gospel truth? It is full of every unflattering DNC talking point and perspective on Bush, and includes none of the refutations from either Bush himself, or his compatriots in the military, including his commanding officer, and the person who admitted him into the Guard, or his roomate. Let's call it the "fake story hit piece" of the youthful George W. Bush. OK, now let's try the same thing with Kerry.

Kerry, the offspring of the Forbses and Winthrop dynasties, attended Swiss boarding school, and Yale... He applied for and received four deferments from the military. He tried to get a fifth deferment, to attend graduate school in Paris. This last deferment was denied, forcing him to choose between being drafted or "volunteering". (Kerry recently criticised Cheney for getting five deferments, even though this is exactly what Kerry himself had tried to do.)

He chose the service least likely to see combat, the Navy, and chose swiftboats, which at the time only patrolled off the coast. He cut short his year long tour of duty in Vietnam by 8 months, by abusing a rule that ejects recipients of 3 purple hearts, an award he repeatedly applied for as commanding officer. It turns out Kerry's first purple heart was granted for (accidentally) self inflicted wounds, consisting of rice in the buttocks from a grenade he had thrown while horsing around. Kerry never missed a day of service or spent a day in hospital due to wounds associated with any of his 3 purple hearts.

Kerry would later marry a multimillionaire, divorce, and then marry a billionaire widow of a Senator. What was that you were saying about priviledge? Today Kerry pays $500 per haircut, and flies his personal hairstylist around the country for touchups on the campaign trail.

Kerry may have chosen the branch least likely to see combat , but AT LEAST HE served his time. Bush even skipped out on that.

And you have the gall to suggest that the NYTimes article was DNC talking points. You use the totally refuted and discredited Swift Boat arguments. That's a joke. To try and sell a "silver spoon" argument about Kerry when Bush is every bit the spoiled, privileged brat is ludicrous. They're both privileged folks. But at least Kerry has brains.

Rick, I'm afraid you missed the ball on this one. If Rathergate is "off-topic," it is only with regard to George W. Bush's character. The process by which forged documents were used to report a story of national (and even, international) significance is relevant, and it should be a topic of discussion. If such careless reporting can occur in a presidential race, it can occur in any other realm, too.

That said, Rathergate becomes "on-topic" if/when it's found that there was some kind of inappopriate collusion between CBS and either the Kerry or Bush campaigns.

If there was collusion of campaign workers in the forgery, they would need to be fired.

Media bias is a topic worthy of discussion most of the time. But with a short window left before we choose a President, I'd prefer we talk about something resembling the issues.

Since the media loves to talk about the media, this story will suck the air out of dicussion of what we really ought to do about the future of our country. That's why I'd like to see Dan Rather retire, so we can drop this story, and maybe move on to something of substance.

I don't see the comparison between Bush and Kerry. Bush was born rich; Kerry went to Andover but he was the poor kid there. His father was a foreign service officer. Privileged? Probably compared to a lot of people, but not compared to GW.

I agree, however, that it's irrelevant. What difference does it make that they were privileged? FDR was privileged but made a pretty good president.

The idea that we should not accept ANYTHING offered in the "liberal" media is getting pretty annoying. Anything that the NYT says bad about the right's heroes is immediately discounted as being media bias. Even if there was bias, don't you think its possible they might have gotten something right? Are we supposed to accept ONLY conservative publications? No bias there, of course. Do you really think that these reporters are sitting there thinking, how can I get this conservative guy? Obviously, you do.

The Rather incident is outrageous. If there was collusion, people should be fired. But how about firing the people in the Bush campaign that coordinated the Swift Boat story. Or is it only one side that can possibly do anything wrong?

Lockhart admits to consulting CBS source...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6063139/

By Carla and Kevin's logic we can assume that the Kerry campaign was behind all of this, right? Because if Karl Rove is from the same state as the guy that created Swift Boat Vets for Truth than he must be the creator of the ads. Excuse me, I'm sorry, it is the lawyer who *gasp* has multiple clients that is the smoking gun. My mistake.

I love how these political hack types cannot help but get involved in the dirt. If Lockhart did anything more than say we are not interested, Kerry should fire his ass.

Who has to go?

Mary Mapes. Without a doubt. She chased the story for five years to the point of obsession, leapt at the spurious memos like a hungry bass at a crawdad, did everything she could to keep them from being properly vetted or critically examined, used them to sucker Ben Barnes into telling a new story on camera, pushed the story into the immediate lineup, and may have played conduit for coordinating the Kerry campaign "Fortunate Son" ads with the CBS broadcast. If I were Mary Mapes I would not let the network attorneys "help" me. They won't. I'd get my own.

Mapes will be crucified and scapegoated by the network in the scramble to cover their own behinds, and properly so. While the network and Rather made mistakes that speak bad very badly of them, and have since stonewalled and mud-slung all they could to divert criticism, the game is up. Mapes was the driving force in the scandal. She's the one who will be designated as "fall guy."

What I find quite laughable is GWB as some sort of common, brush clearing rancher. Before he was governor, he lived about 5 minutes from where I type -- in the Park Cities, an enclave of both old and new money that deems itself too special to be in the same city limits as Dallas.

His family has had many roles and contacts in oil and oil related investing. The only way 'W' stands out is in his lack of matching the family successes.

But Rove had managed to convince millions that he's ole average Joe.

Yeah. Right.