Saturday, January 24, 2004
Sneaky Pete? Was there more than meets the eye to Peter Jennings' question to Wesley Clark--in Thursday night's debate--about the charge that President Bush was a Vietnam-era military "deserter"?
The media focus, thus far, has been on Clark's clumsy answer. But it already seems clear that the lasting impact of Jennings' challenge to Clark will be to thrust the still-unresolved issue of Bush's military record back into the public eye.
Left-leaning blogs and pundits are already hard at work using the debate question as a point of departure for lexis-nexis scavenging. (There's a Boston Globe article from the 2000 campaign season, in particular, that seems ripe for revisiting--stay tuned.)
I'd like to think that Bush's military record was bound to get its share of attention during the run-up to the election. But Jennings' question will have the effect of getting the scrutiny off to an early start.
