The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, whose wife is a GOP political operative, tries as best he can to discredit a book that is due out next week. The headline writer helps. “The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty” details episodes in W’s young life that he rather not see in print. The author, Kitty Kelley, has been booked for a extraordinary three straight days on NBC’s Today, while some other media are not reporting the story.
Kurtz focuses on the latter media in an attempt to slam the book. Kelley has a checkered past and caution is advised. But the reasons for the caution and the reticence of some media should have been exercised on “Unfit To Command,” the widely discredited after it was widely publicized book about John Kerry’s Vietnam service.
ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said the [Kelley] book “obviously would be subjected to serious scrutiny” before the network reported the allegations, “and if we had the author on we would ask her very probing questions.” CBS has not booked Kelley. She is tentatively scheduled to appear on CNN’s “American Morning” and “NewsNight With Aaron Brown.”
…The book did not pass muster at Newsweek, however. Editor Mark Whitaker said his magazine was given an advance copy for a possible story “and we passed. We weren’t comfortable with a lot of the reporting. We will write about it if it becomes a phenomenon and looks like it will have some impact on the campaign debate, not to further publicize the reporting in it.”
… Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said he had not gotten an advance look at the book but “you obviously would have to fact-check the hell out of it.” Excerpting a book “by Kitty Kelley is a problematic proposition,” he said.
And the swift boat veterans’ book wasn’t?
But my favorite citing in the article is of Bush’s frustration in the 2000 campaign.
During the 2000 campaign, Bush repeatedly declined to address questions about possible past drug use, saying only that he had made “mistakes” when he was “young and irresponsible.” He said he had not used illegal drugs since 1974 but refused to say whether he had tried them earlier. “Enough is enough when it comes to trying to dig up people’s backgrounds in politics,” Bush said in 1999.
Yeah, we wouldn’t want to be smearing somebody because of his background.