One week after the death of Ronald Reagan you'd think that the New York Times would be forced by events to provide a fairness in the coverage of Bush vs. Kerry. However...
The last week has witnessed dozens of examples of the media claiming that Bush was going to be able to grab Reagan's mantle and lift himself back into the White House.
So, the long anticipated Clinton memoirs are about to reach the shelves and what is the impact on Kerry's campaign: risk.
Mr. Clinton's efforts to help Mr. Kerry are fraught with risks, Democratic strategists say, including the danger of arousing the legions of Clinton-haters, the possibility of upstaging the candidate himself, and campaign finance rules restricting publicity expenditures around an election. For months, Democratic strategists have worried that if Mr. Clinton's book appeared too close to the election, he could hog the limelight and upstage Mr. Kerry. In the last election, Vice President Al Gore sought to distance himself from Mr. Clinton on the campaign trail rather than risk association with the scandals surrounding his administration.
I'm nearly left speechless at this paragraph and it's stark contrast to the hagiography of the last week. Why wasn't this written last week:
Mr. Bush's attempts to emulate Mr. Reagan are fraught with risks, Republican strategists say, including the danger of arousing the legions of Reagan-haters and the possibility of upstaging the candidate himself. For months, Republican strategists have worried that if Mr. Reagan's death appeared too close to the election, he could hog the limelight and upstage Mr. Bush.
I find the last sentence similarly curious:
In the last election, Vice President Al Gore sought to distance himself from Mr. Clinton on the campaign trail rather than risk association with the scandals surrounding his administration .
Well, isn't the fact that Mr. Gore is not currently in the White House evidence that his strategy does not deserve to be repeated?
Do we really need to rehash after every NY Times article that Clinton was more popular than Reagan. He is a great asset for the Democratic Party and his efforts to help Kerry are going to be a great help to winning back the White House.