Where's the Ball?
Reported by Eleanor - August 24, 2004 -
Special Report with Brit Hume (Aug. 24, 6:00 p.m.) spent 25 minutes on the smear boat story - half the program if you add commercials. About 7 minutes of this time was spent with Bradley Smith, Chairman of the FEC, who said he hasn't personally seen a complaint from the Kerry campaign yet, and the FEC will investigate such a complaint. He also said that Bush asking the vets to stop the ads is not coordination.
Hume asked the question, "Has the ball moved in the direction of illegality, Bush responsibility, and a smear campaign?" The answer by the panel of Fred Barnes, Jeff Birnbaum, and Mort Kondracke did not agree that the ball has switched directions yet, but Konracke indicated that if the story continues, unless the vets can prove that Kerry's medals were not deserved, there could be a "blow back," since Kerry was in a shooting war, and Bush wasn't.
Comment: The time spent on this story was not really a surprise. If they keep it up, that's 1250 minutes between now and election day, but if Kerry continues to "fire back," he might get a fraction of that time as he did today.
