Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
From Geraghty:
Blogger Wizbang notes that John Kerry's latest attack on Bush, charging that the President has admitted he would "privatize" Social Security, is based on some shoddy New York Times reporting. (I can hear the jokes now — "is there any other kind?")
Suskind did not attend the event he got the quote from. Further, it was not televised, it was a private event and there were no transcripts available. Yet he reports the quote as fact.
Suskind does not explain how he got the controversial quote so accurate but does say about an earlier quote "According to notes provided to me, and according to several guests at the lunch who agreed to speak..."
So Suskind got "notes provided to him" and that was good enough to run such an important quote. I hope Bill Burkett was not the source. Is this what passes for reporting at the Times today?
The Kerry/Edwards/NYTimes campaign has decided they can't convince voters with ringing endorsements so they'll scare old people to death.
For their part, the Bush campaign is denying the quote and some even claimed Suskind made the quote up from whole cloth. In the end, it is of little use, the media is running wild with the story, facts be damned.
— Oh, and who is Ron Suskind that the New York Times is having write a 10 (web) page story on Bush just days before the election? He is the author of "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill.''"
What do you think the odds are that the NY Times would let John O'Neill write a piece on John Kerry next Sunday?
Update: Jim Kouri is working this story for Wizbang and he has been in contact with Fox News who has questioned the Kerry camp. So far, Kerry is saying "Hey, it was in the NY Times". (paraphrased of course)
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Well, OK, but I'm not really focusing on the SocSec quote. That's a specific policy issue about which, I am sure, there will be vigorous debate before anything is done. (And, frankly, Bush has been quote upfront about his plans for SocSec reform, so I don't understand why this quote is supposedly so revealing).
I'm thinking more about the broader question of how this Administration governs
Suskind makes the point, in a variety of ways, that Bush's inner circle is among the smallest and tightest in recent history, and that it is particularly resistant to any departures from its orthodoxy.
Given that many here have expressed significant misgivings about people populating the inner circle, how would you be encouraged by a Bush re-election? We would get the benefit of Bush scratching his balls every morning and deciding how to kill more terrorists (and some have exclaimed that this is the sole but necessary benefit of a second GWB admin), but what are the prospects for changing ANYTHING else about Bush II redux?
