Too Easily Manipulated: A Case Study

The real "liberal media" has justifiably castigated the mainstream media for giving George W. Bush too much leeway during his first term. Major newspapers and broadcast outlets played into Republicans' hands too many times--accepting the administration's false claims about Iraq as truth, failing to inform the public about the consequences of Bush's policies, and concentrating too much attention on non-stories like the Teresa Heinz Kerry "shove it" flap.

Among the many abdications of journalistic responsibility during this year's campaign, one stood out for me, not because it was more egregious than others (it was actually relatively minor), but because a) it happened during the Republican National Convention, when I was already infuriated that Bush and Co. were exploiting 9/11 by holding their convention here in New York, and b) it involved Karl Rove, and struck me as representative of the way he has engineered public opinion during Bush's tenure through a campaign of lies, half-truths and dissembling.

On September 1, the third night of the convention, the PBS NewsHour featured a conversation between host Jim Lehrer, left vs. right debaters Mark Shields and David Brooks, and Rove.

While vehemently criticizing John Kerry for his testimony against the Vietnam War, Rove gave a false impression of his own history and made blanket statements about Vietnam that he had no credibility to make. And of course, he got away with it. Here's how it played out:

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Rove, you made some news today in an earlier interview where your criticism of what John Kerry said before Congress in 1971, you said you thought it was... I won't paraphrase you. What did you say? What is your point here?

KARL ROVE: Well, I said reflecting on John Kerry at his convention said he was proud of his service in Vietnam and he has every right to be proud of it. And we acknowledge that he served with honor and distinction. He also said he was proud of what he did when he came back and what he did when he came back was to go before Congress and testify and say that members of the U.S. military in Vietnam raped and pillaged and burned villages and generally routinely acted like Genghis Kahn.

I understand a lot of people who served in Vietnam and their families feel strongly about this. I had an uncle who served in Vietnam several tours of duty, he was a paratrooper, Colonel William [inaudible], and I don't think my uncle, or the men who served under him, were routinely acting like Genghis Kahn. And I understand strong feelings about the war, I was a youngster then, but I remember how strong the feelings were. But I don't think that kind of rhetoric was justified and I understand why people take offense at it. I do as the nephew of a Vietnam veteran.

Rove was born in 1950. He turned 18 in 1968, several years before the Vietnam War ended. He did not serve. Numerous references on the Internet say he “avoided” the draft, some explaining that he was “too busy being a Republican,” a reference to his election as chairman of the College Republicans in 1972. However, I couldn’t find any source that detailed what actions (if any) he took to actively avoid the draft.

But it’s unquestionable that when he said "I was a youngster then, but I remember...", he was trying to conceal the fact that he was the same age as many of the soldiers who fought and died in Vietnam. If Rove had acknowledged his age and his non-involvement, viewers might have wondered, "What authority does this guy have to be criticizing a veteran like Kerry?" So he made himself a "youngster" and introduced his uncle into the discussion to give people the false impression that he's of a younger generation than those who served.

Now, you have to admit that Rove is a clever guy. Evil, but clever. Youngster is not an age-specific term like toddler and adolescent are. He didn't lie, technically. So confronting him in that situation might have seemed overzealous. But if you're afraid of seeming overzealous at the expense of not putting events in context and getting the truth to your viewers (or readers or listeners), then you shouldn't be a journalist. Lehrer should have called him on it. Of course Brooks wouldn't, as he's a loyal Republican hack.

Shields is too timid and civil, though he did fight back a bit. I give him credit for pointing out that Kerry was just quoting other soldiers' testimony, and for standing up for Kerry's right to protest the war, arguing that he earned that right by serving:

I mean, you say he tarnished the record of the service of Vietnam veterans. I mean, you know, to me he volunteered twice to go and he came back and as a combat veteran, honored, as you say, his noble service, and then took that and said "I'm going to fight this war because I don't want other people to die in what's become a fruitless cause."

But Rove continued his attack on Kerry, trying to make him into a bad guy for stating the truth about what happened in the war. Since the Swift Boat liars had been discredited (finally, and too late) in several news reports, Rove's new dirty tactic was to try as persistently as he could to tarnish Kerry's post-war record:

[Kerry] laid it in his testimony as America's indictment in Vietnam and on the basis that the government of the United States had turned our military into war criminals. And I simply do not accept the fact, I do not accept the argument that Americans in Vietnam routinely acted as war criminals.

It's a well-documented fact that Americans committed plenty of war crimes in Vietnam, just like soldiers from every country do in every war. And keep in mind, this discussion happened several months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

Note that Rove said "I simply do not accept the fact" before correcting himself and changing "fact" to "argument." That's what the Bush and Rove and their cronies do: refuse to accept facts. Moreover, how the hell does he know how Americans did or did not act in Vietnam? He wasn't there!

When influential people make statements they have no credibility to be making, statements that could have a direct impact on something as important as a presidential election, it's the responsibility of the person in Lehrer's position, as the host of a reputable news program, to try to set the record straight. Lehrer pissed me off earlier in the year when he interviewed Rumsfeld post-Abu Ghraib, lobbing him softballs and never challenging him when he evaded answering questions directly. So by the time I saw this joke of a broadcast, which basically served as an unpaid advertisement for the Bush campaign, I had already lost a lot of respect for him.

If the newscaster's role is only to introduce interview subjects, joke around with them and ask questions that they may or may not answer, why not just have Lindsay Lohan host the NewsHour. Or Alf.