Good question, Shepard
Reported by Chrish - July 9, 2004 -
On FNL today July 8 at 3:16 Shep Smith asked of Carl Cameron "...what's different today from yesterday? Is there politics in this, as the Democrats are suggesting?" He was refering to the Homeland Security announcement that they have credible intelligence that Al Queda intends to launch terror attacks in the US.
Campaign Carl answered "Most of the Democrat operatives and even some folks who are very close to the Kerry campaign - notably the Media Fund, one of these special IRS groups that's able to do advertising unto itself - has been pumping out emails all day: 'John Edwards is announced running mate yesterday, and today they threaten to raise the terror level - what's that about?' They're not making the accusation but they're raising the question with such a megaphone that what they're trying to do is suggest that this is a political ploy. There's no evidence. We've seen these types of flotations, security increase (garbled) in the past and it hasn't happened and there was no running mate then."
Comment: First, the designation of a "special IRS group" insinuates that the Media Fund is in a preferred-treatment class and is not playing by the same rules as everyone else, which is not the case. They (we) are justifiably suspicious because we News Hounds have seen this identical tactic used numerous times. When the Dems are looking good in the news, the administration pulls a headline stealer out of its arsenal and Fox obligingly puts them back on the top of the marquee. A recent example that comes to mind is the early handover of "sovereignity" to Iraq, (moving up "an arbitrary deadline for a symbolic gesture" credit Jon Stewart) which effectively silenced the media frenzy about Fahrenheit 9/11's huge success.
