Enough already
Politics has never had an especially spic-and-span reputation, but this year’s presidential race has to be one of the most frustrating on record. From Swift Boats to Rather-gate, both sides seemed determined to fight to the finish over events that occurred over thirty years ago. It is almost enough to make you think that they really don’t have any workable solutions for the problems we face with health care, the economy, etc., so they keep blathering on about who did what way back when. Of course, we want to know if either of the candidates cheated in their service to the country back then, but the likelihood of concretely answering those questions is slim, and most people would benefit far more from hearing how social security is going to be protected and how our taxes will be affected if Kerry or Bush sits in the White House for the next four years. Let’s hope that the smokescreen issues will be blown away before election day arrives, and we will get some straight answers before we have to cast our votes. DBJ

CBS’ big black eye
Talk about problems: CBS has one. Bernard Goldberg was a CBS reporter and producer for 30 years and wrote two books about his experience: Bias and Arrogance. Now CBS has been caught using forged documents to bolster a pre-conceived conclusion about President Bush’s National Guard Service, and then took over a week and a half to admit that maybe the documents were fakes. Then CBS, and Dan Rather in particular, said that even so the content was true. And now, as of this writing, Dan Rather has finally issued an apology of sorts, but is still not admitting that the documents are forgeries. Mr. Goldberg must be feeling mighty vindicated right about now, watching both bias and arrogance on parade. DBJ

That was then…
Really, does what happened 30 years ago matter? With President Bush, we’ve got four years in office that we can use to judge what kind of a President he would make. John Kerry has got almost 20 years in the Senate which we can also use. Both men should run on those records, and Bush is doing that. The problem Senator Kerry faces is that he has a pretty weak record in the Senate, and so put a large amount of focus on his service in Vietnam. Of course, since he made it an issue, everyone started examining his record of service, especially after the SwiftBoat veterans began their attacks. Everyone, that is, except President Bush. He has focused his attacks on Kerry’s recent positions, most notably with the recent “windsurfing” ad which frankly we found hilarious. Humor is most effective when it is laced with truth. Judging from the reactions we’d say it hit home. DBJ