Monday, September 20, 2004

Fault-lines

Bill Burkett is admitting he deliberately misled CBS about the Killian documents. Doesn't that suggest the problem is more localized (er, a la Abu Ghraib?) than systemic? CBS fucked up big time, but the real question in assigning all-important blame for the Burkett/CBS/Lockhart menage-a-memo is, WHAT THE HELL WAS BILL BURKETT THINKING? Was he just so angry about Swift Vets that he couldn't control himself? Zell Miller got his goat? Did he really think the pajama gang wouldn't catch on, that there wouldn't be a backlash? (Unless, as I said before, Karl Rove played agent provocateur and slipped Burkett the documents knowing Burkett couldn't restrain himself... Or maybe Burkett's a double agent -- seriously, what kind of Democrat lives in Abilene?)

Bloggers may love this story, but I think Fox News loves it even more. They get to attack a competitor, attack the mainstream media, attack liberals, and attack John Kerry all at the same time. And it's a great story for the 24 hr news cycle -- with just enough time between successive developments to call in your favorite pundits, shock-jocks, and partisan hatchet-men. Someone's going to have to bring Roger Ailes back down to earth for those boring, un-Foxnewsworthy debates.

A little gedankenexperiment: what would the reaction be if Drudge had broken the story?