Where is Donald Segretti when you need him? Democrat Dirty Tricks and the Continuing Plunge of the Mainstream Media
Backrground: An AP mini-scandal
Tom Hays of the Associate Press filed a false report of people booing at a Bush rally when the President told them of former President Clinton’s impending bypass surgery. It never happened. They clapped (audio) when President Bush asked for their good wishes and prayers for Clinton.
The AP started acting weirdly, pulling the byline on the story, changing the story, admitting no mistake, issuing no separate correction.
In the old world, no big deal. In today’s world, big deal. Powerline, Instapundit, the rally attendees, and dozens of citizen reporters swarm like bees. Now the AP is the story, and the Democratic Party has even been brought in, since Susan Estrich was promising dirty tricks. She mentioned abortions and more DUI’s — maybe she confused booze with boos.
All I can say is that Ed Muskie’s letter describing Scoop Jackson’s bastard-producing 17-year old looks good by comparison. I always thought Donald Segretti was a sympathetic character as he was portrayed in All the President’s Men, and our current level of discourse confirms that I was right.
Segretti was a cutting-edge dirty trickster for his time. The current bunch, including Tom Hays of the AP, had better sharpen their skills to get beyond half a news cycle.
Continuing Rapid Decline of the MSM
UPDATE: The MSM are disgracing themselves in this election cycle, as Roger Simon notes, and is evidenced by Fox News beating, not only CNN and MSNBC, but the networks (see Yahoo and Captain Ed):
Meanwhile, Fox News continued its unprecedented ratings dominance over this year’s Republican convention, edging out not only its cable rivals but each of the major broadcast networks by drawing 7.3 million viewers to its telecast of Bush’s address.
That marked the third straight night Fox has surpassed its larger broadcast rivals in the first case of a cable channel attracting more viewers than any of the three major networks during a scheduled event covered by all of them, experts said.
NBC ranked second on Thursday with 5.9 million viewers, followed by ABC with 5.1 million and CBS with 5 million. CNN finished fifth with 2.6 million viewers while NBC’s sister cable channel, MSNBC, brought up the rear with 1.7 million.
Stay calm, everyone, no reason to panic, it’s just those wascally wepublicans and their dirty tricks.
UPDATE2: More bad reporting from the AP.
UPDATE3: CBS News 60 Minutes joins the bad reporting with the Ben Barnes hit piece on Bush.