Spilling the water

The water carriers for Kerry assaulting Bush seem to have dropped their containers. Looking through the opinion articles there are still some trying to pretend there´s something in the CBS story, but they´re relying heavily on the so-called big picture. In other words they already know the story, they´re just looking for some detail to fill it in.

What frustrates me is that the BBC are almost the archetype of that attitude. Their story remains largely unaltered, with the admission that some have found the memos suspicious. If there was ever a time that a British news organisation could show up the US media, this might be it- but it's not in the BBC's script to do that kind of exposé.

The entire article is almost as misleading as ever- by which I mean that the CBS story is embedded within a context of a history of Bush's military documents, many of which released by the Whitehouse. It's a case of trying to spot the odd one out- Rather's photocopies don't exactly compare, but they do happen to signifcantly develop a dormant story. The only consolation might be that few will ever read it since it´s now buried.

Does it do any good to go on emphasising the idiocy of Rather's position? I think it's not going to harm Bush to have a meme up and running about the lying Liberal media. The US election will be about who the public in their hearts associate with the title of Al Franken's book. There's no doubt in my mind who better fits that description- but proof is always good.

Meanwhile the BBC go back to their favourite topic- how the Iraq war was wrong. This must be true, because even Koffi says so. Faced with Koffi and the BBC in tandem once more, I'd rather hear it from this man. The BBC though manage to make their main headline block comprise how Iraq war was wrong, how Iraq is terrible now, and how it will be worse in the future. Almost beyond parody, but not quite.

Update: the Coalition partners respond to Koffi and the BBC's manufactured moment (like a high proportion of the news the 'Koffi calls war illegal' story is a story that people -ie. the BBC and Koffi- decided was going to happen). Basic thesis from the Coalition: Koffi's got a cheek. I couldn't agree more.