BLACK THURSDAY FOR BUSH/ A must read for loyal DUer's

[midnitemoleman]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55857-2003Jul14.html?referrer=email

By David S. Broder
Tuesday, July 15, 2003; Page A19


If President Bush is not reelected, we may look back on last Thursday, July 10, 2003, as the day the shadow of defeat first crossed his political horizon. To be sure, Bush looks strong. The CBS News poll released that evening had his approval rating at 60 percent, with solid support from his own party, a 26-point lead among independents and a near-even split among Democrats. Two-thirds of those surveyed could not name a single one of the nine Democrats vying for the right to oppose him.

But "The CBS Evening News" that night was like Karl Rove's worst nightmare, and the other network newscasts -- still the main source of information for a large number of Americans -- were not much better.

The headlines announced by John Roberts, substituting for Dan Rather on CBS, were: "President Bush's false claim about Iraqi weapons; he made it despite a CIA warning the intelligence was bad. More Americans say U.S. is losing control of Iraq. Also tonight, food lines in America; they're back and getting longer."

Brian Williams, filling in for Tom Brokaw on NBC, began: "War zone. Two more Americans dead in Iraq, and now the general who led the war says the troops could be there four more years."

Peter Jennings on ABC gave the administration a break, opening the broadcast with this: "The secretary of state says there was no attempt to deceive the American people about the case for war in Iraq." But then Jennings described Colin Powell's news conference as "damage control," an effort to explain "why the president used some false information in his State of the Union address to justify attacking Iraq."

All of them -- and cable news -- cited the dissonant voices from within the administration blaming one another for Bush's use of a report, which the CIA had long since discredited, claiming that Iraq tried to buy uranium for a nuclear weapons program from the African country of Niger.

More (A must read for you DUer's)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55857-2003Jul14.html?referrer=email

[LiberalLibra]

1. Keep it coming, Baby!!!! Drip, drip, drip!!!!!

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