Tonight at 8:00 p.m. EDT/PDT CBS’s “60 Minutes” will interview Ben Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Texas who says he now regrets that, at the urging of the Bush family, he pulled strings to get George W. Bush a coveted spot in the “Champaign Unit” of the Texas National Guard. The unit was so named because of the many sons of the privileged who were in it. Other reports suggest tonight’s program may go into other discrepancies, inconsistencies and lies in the Bush family’s story of W’s Vietnam era service – or lack thereof.

The Associated Press has been running stories recently about the inconsistencies and lack of documentation of Bush’s service after it obtained new records – records the Bush administration previously said it couldn’t find — in the last few days.

The Boston Globe has uncovered additional information that casts doubt on Bush’s service.

I urge you to take the time to watch tonight’s “60 Minutes.” Can we trust a man who lied to get us into a war where now 1,000 troops have died and apparently lied about his military service?

Where a story is placed is as important as what’s covered. I’ve argued before that important stories that should be on the front page (the Bush campaign’s inaccuracies and distortions, for example) are far less effective when they are buried in the paper

I’ve also argued before that The Washington Post is particularly culpable in their placement of stories about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the single most contentious issue between the Muslim world and the U.S., in my opinion.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone then that today’s story about the Israeli attack that killed 13 Palestinians and injured 25 other people is on page A17, whereas the bombing a week ago by Palestinian militants that killed 16 people got front page coverage and a photo.

You can argue, as The Post often does through its ombudsman, that front page stories are determined in large part by what stories are breaking that day. The killing of seven Marines in Iraq, Florida’s cleanup after Frances and the aftermath of the Russian tragedy are among the stories making front page news today.

But The Post’s placement of stories of the killing of Palestinians and Israelis has followed a pattern for too long, especially for an issue that should play a greater role in the election this November.

Chris Matthews, of the misnamed “Hardball” on MSNBC (it should be “Blowhard” in honor of its host or “Softball” for when he fawns all over people he likes), is catching flak for letting former Sen. Alan Simpson* get away with another unsubstantiated slur.

“In four months of service,” Simpson said in reference to John Kerry, “it’s very difficult for this cowboy to understand how you get three purple hearts. Just mark it down, that’s all I’m saying.” It was the equivalent of a Democrat going on the air and saying, “Well, I’ve heard George Bush used to do a lot of cocaine 30 years ago, and I know it’s tough to stop doing drugs, so it’s just difficult for this American to understand how it could be that he’s not still coked up to the gills every day. Just mark it down, that’s all I’m saying.”

Matthews, to his credit, pounced, asking Simpson, somewhat incredulously, “You don’t think he would have inflicted those wounds himself?” A little bit after backing off slightly in response to that question, Simpson changed course and gave us his imitation of a crystal ball reader:

I think what you’re going to find, they’re going to go into his records just as they would yours or mine or anybody else’s. They’re going to go into Edwards, and guess who will do that? The media. They’re going to pick the leaves off the onion and they’ll go goofy with these two guys in the next two months.

Simpson seems to be implying, first, that there are somewhere copious records detailing Kerry wartime indiscretions that the media has so far ignored, and second, that John Edwards has something to account for about his own Vietnam era behavior. Whereas in fact, thanks to the media’s belated investigation into the dubious allegations of the creatively-named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Kerry’s war records have already been examined more closely than a urine sample from Marion Jones; and Edwards didn’t even enter the draft lottery until 1972, a year at the tail-end of the war and, more importantly, a year in which no one was called up.

So how did Matthews respond? He grinned at Simpson and exclaimed, “Sounds good to me!”

Well, Chris, it didn’t sound so good to us. To us, it sounded like an on-air reporter letting a ludicrous hypothetical speculation, meant to tar a candidate, go unchallenged.

As noted earlier, The Washington Post today put on page 1 above the fold and under a picture of George and Laura a story that takes to task the GOP for its distortions of Kerry’s position.

I sense that journalists are reaching a point where we may see more of these stories. I don’t think you’ll see it as much on broadcast news and cable talk shows, especially when it comes to challenging the GOP. First, broadcast news is limited by time; nothing lasts more than five minutes before the talking heads feel compelled to move on to another topic. Besides, I’m convinced that most of them just aren’t that bright. More precisely, they are ignorant of the issues. They don’t know when they are being fed a bunch of crap.

But The Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, USA Today and a few other major papers could provide more reality checks. What would help is if we all start pestering them for such pieces.

My suggestion is send emails to reporters covering the campaigns as well as editors and ombudsmen. Tell them you’d like them to compare the rhetoric with the facts.

Here are some contacts below, though I’m not sure of all the emails. In some cases, I’m using the conventions the papers use to guess at email addresses. It really won’t take that many requests to get some results.

The Washington Post
Glenn Kessler – kesslerg@washpost.com (He co-wrote today’s Post story)
JimVandHei – vandeheij@washpost.com
Dana Milbank whitehouse@washpost.com
Dan Balz – balzd@washpost.com (He writes a lot of the campaign analysis pieces)
ombudsman@washpost.com

The New York Times
Dan Okrent – public@nytimes.com (Ombudsman)
National Desk – national@nytimes.com
Washington Desk – washington@nytimes.com
Managing Editor – managing-editor@nytimes.com
Executive Editor – executive-editor@nytimes.com
Adam Nagourney is a key reporter but does not reveal his email address, and the Times doesn’t use an email naming convention consistently.
Jodi Wilgoren’s email address is wilgoren@nytimes.com
David E. Sanger – dasang@nytimes.com
Elisabeth Bumiller doesn’t provide her email address.

LA Times
The email convention for the LA Times is simply Firstname.Lastname@latimes.com

I’m not as familiar with the specific reporters covering the campaign but Don Frederick is the 2004 political editor – Don.Frederick@latimes.com

A complete LA Times staff directory can be found here.

USA Today
Susan Page and Jill Lawrence are two reporters but the paper doesn’t provide email addresses. You can provide a comment here.

If we can get these papers to do more fact checking, other journalists may follow.

*Editor’s Note: Thanks to an alert reader, I’ve changed Cranston to Simpson in the first sentence. I guess I was just longing for the good old days.

Campaign Desk holds most of the media responsible for not challenging Cheney and Miller on their lies. Slight praise for The Washington Post, however, for an article pointing out some of the misrepresentations. But

This is not the first time the Post has fed its readers spin on page one and an antidote to same on page 17 or 25 or 27; we’re waiting for the day that it occurs to the paper’s editors that they have that formula exactly backwards.

From the AP tonight:

Bush’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night brought the nation a collection of facts that told only part of the story

Update: Apologies as I just discovered that I hadn’t posted the link to this AP story.

Note that The Washington Post today has a front page story (finally) on the disconnect between the GOP talking points and reality.

Guess which network had the highest ratings for Zell Miller and Cheney’s speech? Maybe it comes as no surprise that it’s Fox News, but it’s the first time Fox ever had more viewers than any of the networks for a major news event.

CNN was eating dust, beaten by even MSNBC. But rather than decry the polarization of viewers and the loss of appetite for what CNN likes to think is balanced coverage, the powers at CNN should see the opportunity. CNN Headline news can handle the breaking news. Move some reporters to it for more in-depth coverage, say when Bush starts another war. But turn CNN into a liberal version of Fox. Air America has proven that liberal talk can compete. Why not liberal watch and talk? If ratings are all they care about, that’s one way of maybe even beating Fox.

Or I guess they could go the topless route.

Either way, I’d watch regularly.

One exchange I missed last night was between Sen. Zell Miller and Chris Matthews where the ex-Democrat (I’ve kicked him out of the party) said he wish he could challenge Matthews to a duel.

The Chicago Trib has the transcript as well as the exchange I allude to below on CNN.

Thanks to Kos for picking up these AP photos.

Ted Koppel concluded tonight’s (Weds.) show with Jon Stewart, who again proved one of the more articulate critics of the media. Stewart suggested that the media is shirking its duty by publicizing the Swift Boat veterans’ unsubstantiated and now widely discredited charges about Kerry’s Vietnam experience.

Koppel suggested that there was a difference “between fact and truth.” The Swift Boat vets accusations were fact, though false.

I find that a disingenuous argument. The distinction is if the accusers are credible, and in such an important event as a presidential campaign, where does Koppel plan to draw the line? Does every accusation get reported and sliced six ways to Sunday even though there is no credible evidence it is plausible?

Still, I’ve got to Koppel credit for having Stewart on again. It builds his credibility. I have three teenagers who probably get a good dose of their news from Stewart. They could do worse.

My only regret is that by watching Koppel and Stewart I missed some of Lance Armstrong on Jay Leno.

The sacrifices we make.

Joe Klein just called Zell Miller’s speech “ugly” and “wildly inaccurate” and described Miller’s and Cheny’s speeches as “angry inaccuracies.”