By now you have probably heard about the "October Surprise" missing explosives non-story and the allegations that the Kerry campaign worked in conjunction with the MSM to get this non-story out just in time to damage Bush.
If you haven't, start with Drudge and then surf the blogosphere, starting with LGF.
What does this have to do with the "other" October Surprise, the WND story about Kerry and the VC?
This is purely speculation on my part. I'm no expert and I have no sources. This is merely a hunch.
That disclaimer out of the way, here is my theory:
I suspect that CBS, the NYT, and the Kerry camp wanted to hold this until Friday. Friday before the election is the best possible day for a damning attack. It gets coverage the whole weekend, but deprives the opponent of sufficient time to reply. Consider the 2000 DUI charge. That cost George W. Bush the popular vote and kicked off the worst post-election debacle since 1876.
But instead of breaking Friday, it broke early. Now some people say this is because CBS and the NYT were in a war to get the exclusive story out first. They are news competitors, and being first with the story is the goal of every newsroom.
I don't buy it.
The NYT and CBS are both clearly in the "anybody but Bush, Bush out at all costs" camp. I don't for one second believe that either one of them would choose winning the breaking news race over the breaking Bush cause. If anything, the two competiting media were probably coordinating the whole thing, along with the Kerry camp, for months.
They should have both run with the story on Friday. The NYT should have printed a brief story Friday morning, to whet the appetities of the Bush-hater crowd; CBS should have run an hour-long prime-time special edition of the news.
Had they done so, it could have seriously hurt Bush. Even though time would allow the blogosphere to uncover the truth, by the time word got out to mainstream America, the election would already be over. As it stands now, however, this non-story now has plenty of time to backfire. By Friday, everyone will know the truth, and public perception will be that Kerry and the MSM were trying to change the polls with pre-planned bogus news.
These people aren't stupid. They knew this was a dangerous thing to do, but they did it anyway. The only possible explanation is desparation.
But desparation about what? The polls are still neck and neck, and as long as it's close, they can steal the election with recounts and lawsuits. They must have known something.
My hypothesis is that Kerry's planners knew the WND story was coming. If the story is true, Kerry himself knew it was a skeleton in the closet. If the story is false, then while Kerry wouldn't have the personal knowledge, someone from his inner circle may well have access to the inner workings of WND--giving him an early head's up that the story will run.
And even if the story is false, it could still do damage if it hit the MSM too close to the election for the Kerry-supporting MSM to prove it false. With WND breaking the story on Monday, the blogosphere picking it up and running with it on Tuesday, you can imagine that the talking heads on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh will mention it by Wednesday, forcing the extreme Left to denounce it by Thursday, which will all but require the MSM to at least mention it by Friday.
Unless, that is, something else overshadowed it.
The more people are talking about "explosive-gate," the less they are talking about "VC-gate."
So I think that the Kerry camp made a calculated decision to mitigate damages from VC-gate by launching explosive-gate ahead of schedule. They must have figured that the backlash from intentionally running with a non-story would be far less than the potential damage from smoking-gun evidence that John F. Kerry committed treason. As long as explosive-gate is the top story and VC-gate is in the shadows, Kerry can fall back on his "don't question my patriotism, I fought in Vietnam!" stance and deflect the worst of it. But if VC-gate takes center stage, then all of a sudden we CAN question his patriotism. And his patriotic Vietnam-hero image is the only thing he has offered this campaign.
So there you have it. I think the two October Surprises are inextricably linked, and both point back to Kerry the lying, manipulating, calculating, treasonous bastard.
You said, "if it turns out to be true, John Forbes Kerry's political career is over."
Yes, it's true. However, as long as we are always cautious and fearfull of demanding that the media take notice of truth, cautious about speaking our minds, this one-sidedness will never change. That's exactly what the left wants and expects from us. So far, their expectations have been met.......quiet. They IGNORE and we let them.
Try this link and connect the dots. Help get the truth out.
http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12699
Posted by: V. | Tuesday, 26 October 2004 at 07:39 PM
Well I do think that finding truth is an important component of journalism. We'll see what the blogosphere turns up in the next few days.
Posted by: Gullyborg | Tuesday, 26 October 2004 at 09:08 PM