Scandals

The current scandals with the most significant effects on policy are the WMD fraud, the Plame investigation and the instances of shameless crony capitalism with Halliburton and Bechtel in Iraq.

The Bush AWOL issue attracts a lot of attention because of Bush's stance of being a "war President" and of attacking the patriotism of anyone who criticizes his foreign policy. Kevin Drum at Calpundit has been bird-dogging the AWOL revelations, including some original reporting of his own. Eric Boehlert at Salon.com has also been doing a good job of summarizing the daily status of the story. And Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler continues to critique the press corps' treatment of the subject.

In the political world of the Internet and rightwing talk radio, a sex scandal no matter how phony can get big play. Especially if it's about a Presidential candidate like John Kerry. And once it becomes an issue, even if the original claim is completely made up, the mainstream media then start reporting the allegations as a factor in the campaign. At least the London Times  ("Dirty tricks row hits race for President," Times of London 02/13/04; behind subscription) qualified their reporting on the Drudge Report allegation of a Kerry affair by saying (in the third paragraph) that "there was no evidence for the claims, and key parts were denied."

Joe Conason has a good article on the Republicans' "rightwing media machine" for this kind of allegation: There he goes again! Salon.com 02/13/04. Conason's bottom line:

Journalists must ask themselves why the rumor of a private peccadillo deserves their attention and resources in the 2004 campaign. The press faces a more important issue: learning from its own failure to report the false rationale and abused intelligence that drove the nation to war.

Not surprisingly, the Kerry allegation is being flogged by the bigot junkie talk radio star Rush Limbaugh, who President Bush describes as a "national treasure."