Missing the point.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills

During the 2000 campaign, the press gave more attention to Gore's exaggerations than to Bush's lies. Will it turn out to have made similar errors of emphasis this time? The CBS scandal does not inspire optimism.

Within a few days after "60 Minutes" broadcast its scoop about George W. Bush's now-and-then service in the National Guard, the story for the rest of the media became almost exclusively not about Bush but about the Failings of CBS, Dan Rather, and his producer Mary Mapes. Evidence that the facts alleged in the story were true was either ignored or buried. Consider the first mention in The Washington Post that Col. Killian's secretary, Marianne Knox, had confirmed that the documents accurately reflected the views of Col. Killian. The Post's Howard Kurtz put this fact in the 12th paragraph of a story, the preceding paragraphs of which had dealt not with whether the story was true, but whether the letters were fake.

Actually, Rather's original story had supplied a long-missing piece of the puzzle about Bush's National Guard service. It had been rumored for years that Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor of Texas and longtime political powerhouse in the state, had pulled strings to get Bush into the Guard. Rather now had Barnes on camera confirming for the first time that this was true. If...