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esmaspäev, mai 10, 2004

Lies

Yesterday, Howie Kurtz ran this story in the Washington Post on Bush and Kerry's ads. He rightly addresses the issue of whether Bush is being too negative. But then there's this bit that just pisses me off:

Against this backdrop, the debate over whether the Bush ads are distorting or exaggerating the senator's record assumes greater importance, especially given the unusual negativity this early in the campaign season.

Kurtz then goes on to list several cases where Bush is blatantly making shit up to criticize Kerry. What I don't understand is how you can say, for example, that there's a "debate" over whether Bush's claim that Kerry will raise taxes by $900 billion is an exaggerration or a distortion. It's a lie. Plain and simple. It's a lie. The Bush campaign is lying. Why can't he just come out and say it? Well, because then you look like you have a liberal bias and journalists are too scared of the right wing to let that happen. So even the most outlandish and obviously false statements coming out of the Bush campaign have to be treated like they might be accurate.

On a side note, at the end, Kurtz addresses some exaggerations in Kerry's ads. Other than the bit about the number of Supreme Court justices opposed to abortion, they're not so bad. And that one sounds more like a mistake than an intentional misstatement.

The whole article begs a question I've asked before, though: Why the hell does anyone trust political ads?
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